> From: Kip Coul <kipcoul@gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 13 Sep 2016 19:01:43 +0200
> Cc: 24158@debbugs.gnu.org
>
> Here's the .emacs file:

Thanks.  But please try just these two lines:

 (global-whitespace-mode t)
 (set-face-attribute 'whitespace-space nil :background nil :foreground "red")

and nothing else.  If this works for you in Emacs 24.4 that you have,
then we can investigate which of the other customizations gets in the
way.  If just those two lines don't work, I'd ask you to try a newer
version of Emacs, maybe this was a problem that was since solved.