MacKenzie rant riles the Scots

teletext.co.uk

 

A rant about the Scots by newspaper man Kelvin MacKenzie on Question Time has sparked hundreds of complaints to the BBC, writes Jonathan Donald.

 

The former Sun editor claimed they lacked entrepreneurial spirit and enjoyed spending but not making money - prompting 200 complaints.

 

MacKenzie was met with boos in the studio when he made the comments in an attack on Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling.

 

"Brown is a Scot, he's a socialist Scot who wants to spend every single penny you earn. Never forget that," said MacKenzie, who's a Sun columnist but not in the Scottish edition.

 

"Scotland believes not in entrepreneurialism like in London and the South East.

 

"The reality is that the Scots enjoy spending it, they do not enjoy creating it, which is the opposite of down in the South."

 

Scottish-born Dragon's Den panellist Duncan Bannatyne, an entrepreneur said to be worth £200m, condemned Mr MacKenzie's comments.

 

He said they were an attack on the character of the Scottish people. "It is plainly wrong for MacKenzie to assert Scottish people do not understand business and enterprise.

 

"Britain's Rich List demonstrates that Scottish entrepreneurs are alive and well."

 

What are your opinions of the former Sun editor's comments?

I watched QT last night, and was aghast at this vile little ogre's comments.

 

I think the chair shut him up quite well on a few occasions, and was visibly riled on a few others.

 

I think The Scum should sack him immediately.

There has been quite a number of things to rile us this week to be honest. <_<

 

 

For the uneducated, here are Kelvin MacKenzie's career "highlights":

 

1> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/1/19/The_Sun_Gotcha.jpg/180px-The_Sun_Gotcha.jpg

The sinking of the Belgrano (May 4, 1982)

 

MacKenzie was responsible for the May 4 "Gotcha" front-page headline, which reported the controversial sinking of the Argentinian battleship General Belgrano by a British submarine during the Falklands War. MacKenzie was heavily condemned by some commentators who felt he was glorifying slaughter and the headline caused a storm of controversy and protest, although MacKenzie had actually changed the front-page of later editions to "Did 1,200 Argies drown?" after it was established that there had been a large number of Argentine casualties. MacKenzie later defended his "Gotcha" headline, saying:

 

“ Gotcha' was mine, which I'm very proud about. The fact that the enemy were killed to my mind was a bloody good thing and I've never had a moment's loss of sleep over it.”

 

MacKenzie's coverage of the Falklands War was criticised by many commentators such as The Guardian journalist and ex-Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade for being jingoistic and a glorification of war (Greenslade was actually working with MacKenzie on The Sun at the time). On one occasion during the conflict, The Sun published a photograph of a missile which had a large Sun logo printed on its side. The paper claimed they had "sponsored" the missile and that it would shortly be used to "kill Argies". The photograph also featured a topless teenage page 3 girl caressing the missile, which was perceived to be phallic imagery and resulted in criticism that The Sun was attempting to use sex to promote and glorify war. While The Sun was heavily criticised and even mocked for its coverage of the war in The Daily Mirror and The Guardian, The Sun responded by accusing these newspapers of treason. The satirical magazine Private Eye mocked and lampooned what they regarded as the paper's jingoistic coverage, most notably with the mock-Sun headline "KILL AN ARGIE, WIN A METRO!", to which MacKenzie is said to have jokingly responded "Why didn't I think of that?".

 

 

 

2> http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/b/b5/Freddiehamster.jpg/180px-Freddiehamster.jpg

Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster, The Sun, 13 March, 1986

 

MacKenzie was responsible for the "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" front-page headline, probably the most famous in The Sun's history. The claims made in the accompanying article, that the comedian Freddie Starr had placed his girlfriend's hamster on a sandwich and proceeded to eat it, not surprisingly turned out to be entirely untrue and an invention of the publicist Max Clifford. The headline is remembered mainly for its humour value and is also often held up as the prime example of the Sun's supposedly celebrity obsessed, sensationalist and often inaccurate journalism.

 

 

 

3> Tony Benn is insane.

MacKenzie also ran a story extensively quoting a respected American psychiatrist claiming that British left-wing politician Tony Benn was "insane", with the psychiatrist discussing various aspects of Benn's supposed pathology. The story was discredited when the psychiatrist in question publicly denounced the article and described the false quotes attributed to him as "absurd", The Sun having apparently fabricated the entire piece.

 

 

 

4> Elton John sex with underage rent boys.

In 1987, MacKenzie published a front-page story alleging that pop singer Elton John had had sex with underage rentboys. These claims were without any foundation and entirely false. Shortly after, MacKenzie published further allegations that the singer had had the voiceboxes of his guard dogs removed because their barking kept him awake at night. Not only were these additional claims also completely untrue, but MacKenzie himself confirmed their inaccuracy shortly after publication by sending a reporter to the singer's house, who quickly discovered that all of his guard dogs were quite capable of barking (MacKenzie later admitted that in retrospect he found it difficult to understand why he had believed, never mind published, the claims about the guard dogs which he later realised were self-evidently absurd). Elton John sued The Sun for libel over both these claims and was later awarded £1,000,000 in damages. MacKenzie later said of Elton John

 

“ I think The Sun should have its million quid back. It hasn’t damaged him at all, has it? Libel can only have a value if there has been some kind of damage, right? Where is the damage? Where? There’s nothing wrong with him. So no, I don’t feel bad about him, not at all."

 

 

5> Scargill as "Mine Fuhrer"

MacKenzie's coverage of the British miners' strike, 1984-1985 supported the police and the Thatcher government against the striking NUM miners. The paper was accused of making misleading or even outright false claims about the miners, their unions and Arthur Scargill. MacKenzie at one point prepared a front page with the headline "Mine Führer" and a photograph of Scargill with his arm in the air, a pose which made him look as though he was giving a Nazi salute. The print workers at The Sun, regarding it as an attempt at a cheap smear, refused to print it. Some Sun staff reportedly threatened to resign over the coverage, although none actually did so.

 

More to follow.......

6> Poll tax protesters are thugs

MacKenzie's Sun supported the introduction of the controversial and highly unpopular Poll Tax by Margaret Thatcher and consistently stuck by Thatcher and her government on the issue despite widespread opposition which culminated in huge public protests, riots and eventually mass non-payment, all of which is seen as having contributed to Thatcher's own downfall before the tax was quickly repealed by her successor John Major. The Sun labelled those attending public protests opposing the tax as "thugs".

 

 

7> L!VE TV British Cable channel.

In 1995 MacKenzie joined Mirror Group Newspapers and was appointed joint boss of their fledgling L!VE TV British cable television channel. The station had previously been headed by Janet Street-Porter, who had set out to establish L!VE TV as an alternative, youth-orientated channel. She clashed with MacKenzie over program content and soon left, leaving him in sole charge.

 

He later said that he would agree to indulge in a "night of passion" with Janet Street-Porter and that she would be "willing", but only if she paid him £4.7m, a figure he had arrived at after calculating how much money he would lose from "loss of reputation, the negative impact on future earnings etc."

 

MacKenzie took a radically different approach and was criticised for producing severely downmarket programming. MacKenzie introduced features such as nightly editions of 'Topless Darts' (featuring topless women playing darts on a beach), 'The Weather in Norwegian' (with a young, typically blonde and bikini-clad Scandinavian woman presenting weather forecasts in both English and Norwegian), other weather forecasts featuring dwarfs bouncing on trampolines and stock exchange reports presented by Tiffany, a young female presenter who would strip naked as she read out the latest share prices. A large amount of airtime was given over to tarot card readers and astrologers. L!VE TV's best known character was the News Bunny, a man dressed as a giant rabbit who popped up during news broadcasts to give a thumbs up or a thumbs down to the various news stories to indicate whether or not he found them interesting or exciting.

 

MacKenzie has been accused of taking a "shamelessly tacky approach". He eventually left the station in 1997. He has later said of L!VE TV:

 

“ Bouncing weather dwarfs were a major milestone in British TV. Their weather forecasts will be five years old now. We used to shoot them in batches ... and it was just luck if the forecast actually coincided with the weather. We were really ahead of our time. If Channel 5 put on Topless Darts at 10pm they would double their ratings".

 

 

8> Tartan Tosspots.

MacKenzie returned to The Sun to work as a columnist from May 2006 where he has again courted controversy, this time by making reference to Scots as 'Tartan Tosspots' and apparently rejoicing in the fact that Scotland has a lower life expectancy than the rest of the United Kingdom. MacKenzie has stated that he has never regarded himself as a good writer and that it takes him a day and a half to finish each column. On the subject of the columns themselves, he has said "I want to get the Lonsdale Belt for vile and be personally rude to as many people as possible."

 

 

9> Mackenzie's philosophy to journalism (from 1986):

“ You just don't understand the readers, do you, eh? He's the bloke you see in the pub, a right old fascist, wants to send the wogs back, buy his poxy council house, he's afraid of the unions, afraid of the Russians, hates the queers and the weirdoes and drug dealers. He doesn't want to hear about that stuff (serious news).

 

 

But by far the most foul, vile & offensive thing he ever did was................

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/6/67/Hillsborough_disaster_Sun.jpg

10. Coverage of the Hillsborough disaster

 

In April 1989, the single biggest controversy during MacKenzie's reign occurred, later described in a Sun editorial in 2004 as "the most terrible mistake in our history", during the aftermath of the Hillsborough disaster, a deadly crush which occurred during an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough football stadium in Sheffield claiming the lives of 96 Liverpool fans.

 

The Sun printed the front-page headline "The Truth", with three sub-headings, "Some Fans Picked Pockets of Victims", "Some Fans Urinated on the Brave Cops" and "Some Fans Beat Up P.C. Giving Kiss Of Life". The accompanying article claimed that ticketless and drunken Liverpool F.C. fans were responsible for the disaster, having supposedly tried to fight their way into the stadium by rushing the turnstiles and attacking policemen outside the ground. Further specific allegations were made that during the disaster itself Liverpool fans inside the stadium had stolen wallets and other items from the dead, had urinated over policemen and the bodies of dead fans, that they had beaten policemen, ambulance men and rescue workers attempting to save the lives of other fans and had sexually abused the body of a dead girl after shouting "throw her up and we'll f*** her" to policemen moving her body.

 

The sources for these allegations were stated to be anonymous high-ranking police officers from Sheffield Police and Irvine Patnick, a Conservative MP from Sheffield who wasn't actually present at the game. (On 11 January 2007 on BBC TV's Question Time, MacKenzie additionally claimed that one of his sources was a Liverpool news agency.) The article was accompanied by graphic photographs showing Liverpool fans, including young children, choking and suffocating as they were being crushed against the perimeter fences surrounding the terraces - this was widely condemned as severely inappropriate.

 

The coverage and the allegations caused intense uproar on Merseyside (where The Sun was boycotted, with public burnings of the paper organised and many newsagents refusing to stock it at all) and widespread criticism and condemnation from many commentators. The Press Council described the allegations unequivocally as "lies". The official government enquiry into the disaster dismissed the allegation that drunken Liverpool fans had been responsible for the disaster and concluded that inadequate crowd control and errors by the police had been the cause of the tragedy. Various investigations conclusively disproved most if not all of The Sun's allegations - when clothing from each of the victims was recovered, none had any trace of urine other than those who had been found to have wet themselves during the crush (this also not surprisingly occurred with some fans who survived having been pulled from the terraces); all wallets, items of jewellery and significant personal possessions of each of the victims was quickly accounted for (thus disproving the allegation of pick-pocketing); no female victim was found to have been sexually abused; and while it has been established that a number of Liverpool supporters verbally abused policemen who they apparently held responsible for the disaster, no policemen, ambulance men or rescue worker have ever come forward to claim that they were physically attacked by a fan.

 

Some weeks after the disaster, Joan Traynor, who lost two sons in the disaster, was asked by ITN for permission to film the funeral of her sons. Traynor refused and publicly requested that the media respect her family's privacy with regard to the funeral. ITN and all other British media outlets did indeed respect Mrs Traynor's wishes with the exception of The Sun. Kelvin MacKenzie sent photographers to the funeral who clambered over a wall at the cemetery and took numerous photographs of the family laying the two boys to rest before eventually being chased away. The following day photographs of the family at the funeral appeared on the front page of The Sun. Mrs Traynor was said to be deeply upset about the intrusion at the funeral and the subsequent publication of photographs of her and her family on the front page of the same paper which had printed the aforementioned allegations about the disaster itself.

 

Prior to the publication of The Sun's initial article, a number of local newspapers in Yorkshire published very similar allegations (such as The Sheffield Star and The Yorkshire Post). It has since emerged that many British national newspaper editors were offered the same story from the same sources the day before The Sun article was published (including Andrew Neil at Murdoch's The Times) but while many national newspapers printed allegations about Liverpool fans being responsible for the disaster, only MacKenzie and his counterpart at The Daily Star were prepared to print the more outlandish allegations about theft and abuse of dead bodies, with many editors feeling that the claims sounded dubious. Furthermore, the other national papers which printed coverage claiming Liverpool fans to be responsible for the disaster, including The Daily Star, withdrew their allegations and apologised the day after publication, whereas The Sun did not.

 

In their book about the history of the Sun, Peter Chippindale and Chris Horrie wrote:

 

“ As MacKenzie's layout was seen by more and more people, a collective shudder ran through the office [but] MacKenzie's dominance was so total there was nobody left in the organisation who could rein him in except Murdoch. [Everyone] seemed paralysed, "looking like rabbits in the headlights", as one hack described them. The error staring them in the face was too glaring. It obviously wasn't a silly mistake; nor was it a simple oversight. Nobody really had any comment on it, they just took one look and went away shaking their heads in wonder at the enormity of it. It was a classic smear.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

Complete lack of remorse for the families of the 96 dead:

 

During an after-dinner speech to Mincoffs Solicitors LLP (a Newcastle-based law firm) on 30 November 2006, MacKenzie is reported to have said of his coverage of the Hillsborough disaster:

 

“ All I did wrong there was tell the truth. There was a surge of Liverpool fans who had been drinking and that is what caused the disaster. The only thing different we did was put it under the headline "The Truth". I went on The World at One the next day and apologised. I only did that because Rupert Murdoch told me to. I wasn't sorry then and I'm not sorry now because we told the truth. ”

 

MacKenzie went on to compare Merseysiders with animal rights activists. Ironically, MacKenzie is also said to have remarked,

 

“ "If this got out, it would blow up all over again". ”

 

The remarks were met with widespread incredulity and condemnation, particularly on Merseyside, where Liverpool F.C., the local Liverpool Echo and numerous local MPs condemned MacKenzie, with Walton MP Peter Kilfoyle arguing that the quotes confirmed that MacKenzie was "never fit to edit a national newspaper". The Liverpool Echo called for The Sun to sack MacKenzie as a columnist. The Sun issued a statement saying that they had "already apologised for what happened and we stand by that apology." However despite reports of consternation at The Sun over MacKenzie's statements, the newspaper chose to retain him as a columnist. MacKenzie himself refused to comment publicly on the controversy and pulled out of a scheduled appearance on BBC TV's Question Time later that week.

 

Earlier that autumn MacKenzie had already provoked controversy in Liverpool by stating in a Press Gazette interview that he had never knowingly printed any lies in The Sun and that even stories which later turned out to be untrue were still "good stories". In relation to the publishing of false or misleading reports in The Sun, MacKenzie asked "What am I supposed to feel ashamed about?" . MacKenzie was not specifically referring to the coverage of the Hillsborough disaster and made no mention of the tragedy during the interview, but the Liverpool Echo published a piece reporting MacKenzie's statements and criticising the apparent lack of shame or regret over the Hillsborough coverage implied by them (and the fact that MacKenzie may still regard the misleading coverage as a "good story").

 

Although there was actually little reaction to the quotes on Merseyside at the time, they did draw comment from Phil Hammond, chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, who said: "I can't believe that even after all these years, there is no remorse or regret for the hurt he caused". It was still thought at this point however that, although MacKenzie appeared not to regret the coverage, he no longer regarded it as having any factual basis after his apparent admissions in the past that the allegations made were lies fed to him by police officers and a Tory MP.

 

On 6 January 2007 a protest took place at Anfield Stadium, the home of Liverpool F.C., during the FA Cup Third Round match against Arsenal F.C.. The protest was organised by fan group Reclaim The Kop, with the support of Liverpool F.C., and was directed towards MacKenzie personally and his continuing allegations about Hillsborough, and also towards the BBC (who were present at the stadium, broadcasting the game live on TV) for employing MacKenzie as a radio presenter and paying him with TV licence payers' (and therefore public) money. Almost 12,000 people in the Kop stand held up a mosaic which spelled out the words 'The Truth' whilst Liverpool supporters chanted "Justice for the 96" for six minutes, signifying the length of time that the Hillsborough game played on for before being abandoned. MacKenzie did not respond to the protest publicly.

 

On 11 January 2007 MacKenzie appeared on BBC TV's Question Time programme, held in his home county of Kent. Towards the end of the program, MacKenzie was asked by presenter David Dimbleby about The Sun's claims about the Hillsborough disaster. MacKenzie stated that he stands by his allegation that ticketless fans were the cause of the disaster but that he does not know whether the other allegations about theft from the dead and fans urinating over victims and policemen were true. MacKenzie also claimed that an unnamed Liverpool news agency was one of the sources for the Sun story, something that he has never claimed before. Clare Short MP suggested MacKenzie should apologise to the bereaved families and survivors who say that his claims cause them distress and hurt but he refused, claiming that it would make no difference anyway due to the bad blood between himself and Liverpool F.C. MacKenzie suggested that those who feel angry at him should instead direct their anger towards "someone who caused the disaster". MacKenzie was heckled by some members of the audience while Short was applauded when she repeated her suggestion that he should retract his claims and apologise, but MacKenzie remained adamant that he has nothing to apologise for.

I hope I wasn't the only viewer to switch off Question Time last night when that vile man appeared. I assume the panelists receive a small fee for appearing. Even if it's only £500 I still resent any of my license fee going to that ghastly individual.

So Scotland doesn’t have any entreupreneurs !

 

Some that spring to mind

 

Duncan Walker Bannatyne UK’s 351 richest person

Tom Farmer founded the chain of Kwik Fit garages and owns Hibs football club

Tom Hunter founded Sports Division sports shops he is the richest person in Scotland with over £1 billion

David Murray UK’s 95th richest person owns Murray International metals and Rangers football club

 

Scottish inventions have been many over the years for example:

 

Macadam roads

Pneumatic tyre

Speedometer

Adhesive postage stamp

Telephone

Television

Radar

Pin numbers

ATM machines

Fingerprinting

First cloned mammal

MRI body scanner

Hypodermicsyringe

Penicillin

 

All these are used today, most we take for granted.

 

This guy is a complete berk, and is obviously one of the most obnoxious persons in this country.

On a smaller scale, my grandfather was a Scot and was a very thrifty man.

He ran a corumbin mine in South Africa and made his own beer (legal not moonshine) when he came to Australia in the 1940s.

I'm sure most of us know Scots who are VERY entrepeneurial. (sorry for the mispelling)

 

That was a very sweeping statement that McKenzie made. Obvioulsy a flop attempt at being controversial. :rolleyes:

So Scotland doesn’t have any entreupreneurs !

 

Some that spring to mind

 

Duncan Walker Bannatyne UK’s 351 richest person

Tom Farmer founded the chain of Kwik Fit garages and owns Hibs football club

Tom Hunter founded Sports Division sports shops he is the richest person in Scotland with over £1 billion

David Murray UK’s 95th richest person owns Murray International metals and Rangers football club

 

Scottish inventions have been many over the years for example:

 

Macadam roads

Pneumatic tyre

Speedometer

Adhesive postage stamp

Telephone

Television

Radar

Pin numbers

ATM machines

Fingerprinting

First cloned mammal

MRI body scanner

Hypodermicsyringe

Penicillin

 

All these are used today, most we take for granted.

 

This guy is a complete berk, and is obviously one of the most obnoxious persons in this country.

 

tbh bri... i always understood that whilst many things invented by the scots, it was english businessmen who got the products off the ground :).

 

 

the blokes a complete reprihensable turd... journolism at its worst

tbh bri... i always understood that whilst many things invented by the scots, it was english businessmen who got the products off the ground :).

the blokes a complete reprihensable turd... journolism at its worst

 

 

but Rob - invention is all about the creation and idea - not the cash needed to market that creation or idea.

You forgot

 

The bicycle

The steam engine

 

 

Oh and it was a Scot who founded the Bank of England. You can't get any more entrepreneurial than that. -_-

but Rob - invention is all about the creation and idea - not the cash needed to market that creation or idea.

 

i know.... its no bloody use inventing summut though if you havnt got the acumen to get it marketed! you may as well not bothered inventing in the first place!

Can I point out something obvious with a name like MacKenzie he must be have Scottish heritage somewhere in his past

^lol

 

show what a tw@t he actually is.

 

personally i am not Scottish, but have lived here for a but 3months of my life. so could technically be classed as one. what he has said is not only untrue, as always, but naive.

 

Had he taken the time 2 pull his head out his ass and look at wikipedia (not hard) he would find that he his talkin a load of b/s

 

no doubt he will get invited on a show shown across the uk and get slagged, to which the scots will find out and then he'll be in deep water