Why Mosley’s legacy amounts to far more than tabloid rumour
The newspapers, naturally, lingered over Max Mosley’s tainted family history and niche sexual practices. But this is to trivialise the legacy of a big beast of motor racing politics. Stuart Codling weighs the life of a man whose work for safety on both road and track has saved hundreds of thousands of lives, but whose penchant for cruelty remains problematic and polarising.
In another life Max Rufus Mosley, who has died aged 81, might have become the UK’s prime minister or attained some similar political grandee status. Educated, urbane and charming, with a brilliantly sharp intellect, he studied physics at Oxford, served in the Territorial Army, and later qualified as a barrister.
A career in politics might have beckoned but did not – could not – eventuate, for above all he was the son of the British Union of Fascists leader Sir Oswald Mosley. His mother Diana, one of the famous Mitford sisters who delighted and scandalised society in the 1930s, had been an open advocate of Adolf Hitler.
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