[Closed] Kelvin MacKenzie

If he or Morgan didn't exist we'd only have to invent them.

Looking at the picture of him in the BBC article he has some nerve criticising anyone's appearance.

He is the mould that all bellends are made from.

Hopefully Everton will follow Liverpool's lead and ban that odious rag.

YNWA

Horrible horrible man. Suspended rather than sacked. Hope one leads to the other..

Someone approved it for publishing as well and should also go in my opinion. Saying that wish they'd just do away with the rag in its entirety

If only everyone would stop reading the landfill they produce. Lad got hit for no reason which results in an article critising his ability, ethnicity and appearance.

vile publicity seeking columnist (for a vile bilge peddling rag) gets lots of publicity

I thought this was about that melt that presents Grand Designs.

even for the gutter press he is the lowest of the low

& people still buy it ffs

I genuinely can't think of a bigger ****

Depressingly, my lad does a paper round. 80% of the ****s he delivers to have the ****ing mail or bastard sun.

I've told him to put dogshit through their ****ing bastard Tory **** doors. The absolute ****s.

Vile man , can't believe that no one at the sun put their hand up and said "really ? "

Alongside the article, The Sun published adjoining pictures of Barkley and a gorilla on their website with the caption "Could Everton's Ross Barkley represent the missing link between man and beast?" The picture was later removed.

Geez its still up on their website ! racist ****s

[img] ?strip=all&w=750&quality=100[/img]

To be fair to The Sun, how were they to know for the last thirty odd years that Kelvin McKenzie was a massive **** till he wrote this article.

Disgusting journalist writes for disgusting paper. No surprise there.

Crappy journalism from a piece of scum...

...But racist? Really?

I've told him to put dogshit through their * bastard Tory * doors. The absolute ****.

Good to see a well balanced opinion expressed in such an articulate manner.

Oxygen thief

But racist? Really

Barkley is mixed race, his mother's side hails from Nigeria.

Nothing about the editor who allowed the fat man's brain vomit to be printed in the first place. ..

As a so called sports journalist you would expect Mackenzie to be aware that there was talk of Barkley playing for Nigeria over England so yes it's a racist statement.

Woppit makes a very good point, Mackenzie doesn't just send it straight to print, it would be looked at by a number of people. The Sun is institutionally racist and vile, the fact that so many people buy it and read it rather than wiping their arse on it gives gives an idea to how a lot of people in this country think.

Spot on Pf. Gutter rags like The Mail and The Sun are nothing more than products designed for the miserable Brexit-voting ignorant, racist idiots who are the majority in the UK.

Woppit makes a very good point, Mackenzie doesn't just send it straight to print, it would be looked at by a number of people.

Not just looked at but contributed to - I don't imagine Mackenzie sourced the pictures of gorillas for instance. Its not a case of failing to notice what Mackenzie was doing.

I bet this has generated a lot of clicks on that article. For example, how many people on this thread would have read it if it hadn't been beyond the pal
e...

Well I read the BBC report on it (Sun is behind a pay wall anyway so no more clicks/money towards it) good to see this sort of crap being found and presented (especially as you don't actually have to pay them anything to see)

I bet this has generated a lot of clicks on that article. For example, how many people on this thread would have read it if it hadn't been beyond the pal
e...

The link is to the BBC's article on it, so does nothing for the Sun's readership/advertising figures and so on.

[url=

never buy the Sun[/url]

Well imagine how many thousands of clicks the BBC have generated for the sun.

The very worst output of our press is largely funded and encouraged by people who share it and talk about it - and those people largely don't approve of it.

Mackenzie can be added to the list of writers who I would never even have heard of if people who think he's **** didn't keep generating clicks and publicity for him.

outofbreath - Member
Well imagine how many thousands of clicks the BBC have generated for the sun.

MacKenzie is quoted as saying in the early 1980s (on the subject of how he perceived The Sun's target audience):

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 weirdos and drug dealers. He doesn't want to hear about that stuff (serious news).[6]

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.[7]

Despite MacKenzie's self-professed pride at having printed the "Gotcha" headline, Roy Greenslade has said that he had only chosen the headline prior to it becoming clear that there had been a large number of Argentine casualties resulting from the sinking of the Belgrano and that even he later became concerned that the headline may be seen as insensitive and distasteful.

MacKenzie was responsible for the "Freddie Starr Ate My Hamster" front-page headline. 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, turned out to be entirely untrue

Invented stories
In January 1987, MacKenzie published a totally unfounded front-page story alleging that pop singer Elton John had had sex with underage rentboys. Shortly afterwards, MacKenzie published further entirely false allegations that the singer had had the voiceboxes of his guard dogs removed because their barking kept him awake at night. MacKenzie 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.[16] 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.[citation needed]

"Why? It's paywalled so you can't actually read it, would you rather people like that were not challenged?"

In this specific case yes, I'd rather it was totally ignored. Then it would generate no revenue, and it would stop.

Saying, "I disapprove of what you say, but here is some cash/publicity to encourage more of it" is mental.

In this case the motive is publicity/revenue. Take the motive away, you take the stories away.

Saying, "I disapprove of what you say, but here is some cash/publicity to encourage more of it" is mental.

The problem with ignoring it is that he actually has a platform and he has a readership. If it was an idiot on you tube then you could just remove the content. This was published in a leading paper.

It's entirely right to point out that Kelvin Mackenzie is a disgusting racist stain on humanity.

Edit this is the sort of thing that can really be achieved
http://fortune.com/2017/04/04/bill-oreilly-fox-news-advertisers/
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/advertisers-continue-drop-fox-news-oreilly-factor/story?id=46605563

I'd like to parachute him into Liverpool city centre, at last orders, on a busy Saturday night, to explain to the local population his editorial stance on this, and more importantly Hillsborough

He's a toad of a man, he's been doing the Katie Hopkins thing for decades.

I'm surprised this cost him a suspension though, it wouldn't make his top ten of bullshit, bile filled nonsense pieces he's curled out to his followers. I guess some of them are Football Fans.

I too binners would make an effort to turn up on at midnight saturday to kick $hit out of the %^&* on church street. I am an Evertonian some of my friends and family are Liverpool Supporters. We take the mick out of each other yes. But what is print ed in that rag has never touched my hands.

Not being a professionally offended handwringer, a northerner or a footballist, i am failing to see what the issue is after reading the article.

Not being a professionally offended handwringer, a northerner or a footballist, i am failing to see what the issue is after reading the article.

You're probably a bit thicker than you normally come across here then.

😆

You also failed to use the word 'snowflake' in your tediously predictable drivel

D-

Must try harder

Not being a professionally offended handwringer, a northerner or a footballist, i am failing to see what the issue is after reading the article.

Good point, could you kindly post a photo & bio so we can get an opinion piece up on ST that insults your appearance, intellect, background, culture and race?

You shouldn't have an issue with that eh?

Has anyone actually seen the full article? I'm unsure of the Gorilla reference to Barkley. I'm imagining (though might be wrong) it's that he in reference to Barkley having a reputation to looking, sounding and acting a bit thick. A sort of missing link reference. Like the sort of thing people have said about Rooney since he was a teenager.

Does that count as a racist comment because Barkley has partial African origins? I'm guessing that's the case because over the years overt racists have used monkey references to denigrate black people. So now any reference to primates in the same sentence as someone with (partial) african origins is now racist? Just want to get this right. Would McKenzie have been ok with the racial bit if he'd referenced Barkley looking like a neanderthal?

For reference my nickname when I was younger was 'Monkey paws' because my hands were(are) so hairy, and people thought they looked a bit like a monkey's. They do. This is ok because I don't have any african heritage but would have been racist if my grandfather was from Nigeria? Well apart from the obvious genus that we all have African relations if you go back a couple of hundred generations. I also note the OP's username he has chosen for him/herself.

No McKenzie apologiser - the man and the paper are things the world would be better off without. And why someone in his situation would even touch on Liverpool as a subject is beyond me. [url= https://www.spectator.co.uk/2012/09/hillsborough-and-me/ ]Maybe it's because he felt he was unfairly treated incomparison to other editors of the time.[/url]

Perhaps he felt like he needed to write something on the Hillsbourgh anniversary. The piece was nothing but abuse really, sure most people would like to be compared to drug dealers. The sun however says it's not their views and they didn't bother to research anything properly while checking and approving it.

As some of the things I posted earlier show he has had far too many chances for all of this to just be an accident of misjudged.

Is there a rebuttal to that Spectator article?

[url= http://www.lettersofnote.com/2013/08/arkell-v-pressdram.html ]arkell v. pressdram[/url]

Has anyone actually seen the full article? I'm unsure of the Gorilla reference to Barkley. I'm imagining (though might be wrong) it's that he in reference to Barkley having a reputation to looking, sounding and acting a bit thick. A sort of missing link reference. Like the sort of thing people have said about Rooney since he was a teenager.

Does that count as a racist comment because Barkley has partial African origins? I'm guessing that's the case because over the years overt racists have used monkey references to denigrate black people. So now any reference to primates in the same sentence as someone with (partial) african origins is now racist? Just want to get this right. Would McKenzie have been ok with the racial bit if he'd referenced Barkley looking like a neanderthal?

For reference my nickname when I was younger was 'Monkey paws' because my hands were(are) so hairy, and people thought they looked a bit like a monkey's. They do. This is ok because I don't have any african heritage but would have been racist if my grandfather was from Nigeria? Well apart from the obvious genus that we all have African relations if you go back a couple of hundred generations. I also note the OP's username he has chosen for him/herself.

No McKenzie apologiser - the man and the paper are things the world would be better off without. And why someone in his situation would even touch on Liverpool as a subject is beyond me. Maybe it's because he felt he was unfairly treated in comparison to other editors of the time.

Oh, I forgot. My sister's partner has a Kenyan father. It's such a non issue I have to remind myself. Their 5yr old daughter is therefore 25% of African heritage but as fair skinned as any child I know. She is cheeky. I often call her a 'cheeky monkey'; as does her dad. She even has a cheeky money t shirt. Does that make me racist, or her dad for that matter? Maybe I'm racist but he's ok as he is mixed race too so can say it.

Maybe I'm racist but he's ok as he is mixed race too so can say it.

Read the pricks list of previous.

Everton has banned the Sun.

Good

Perhaps cheeky monkey has no racial meaning and perhaps comparing black folk to apes does have some racial history?

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

To make it more relevant he should try it with someone he has never met

I think we might give another poster the benefit of the doubt that such remarks were entirely innocent and made in good faith.

However, if McKenzie is feeling a bit hard done by (poor thing), perhaps he should reflect on whether his forty years as a professional **** might have influenced how we now interpret his remarks, his intent and their context. 🙂

comparing black folk to apes

For the avoidance of doubt, this is Ross Barkley:-

[img] ?20170309164104[/img]

Ross Barkley is a lot of things (including a damed good footballer) but he is not black. African heritage in a recent generation yes, but he's not black.

Can you check with your mixed race in law if you can make monkey noises at him, based on his heritage, and get back to us?

I must have missed the bit where McKenzie made monkey noises to make this a relevant sense check - sorry.

he should reflect on whether his forty years as a professional **** might have influenced how we now interpret his remarks, his intent and their context.

This is maybe it. He is a grade one arse by most people's standards - to me this is a situation where he's let his guard down by making a comment that if you squint a bit (god, can I say that!?! And now I've offended the god bothers too) could be taken as racist just enough for everybody to give him a longed for smack around the chops.

I was going to say has anything found anything in his body of work that makes him commendable so far?

I must have missed the bit where McKenzie made monkey noises to make this a relevant sense check - sorry.

I understand why you want to sidestep the question given it completely tears asunder your argument

Personally i doubt kelvin meant to be racist[ I assume he is too stupid to know the players heritage] but he certainly meant to be offensive to the player , all of Liverpool and its inhabitants

Given his history , and that of the SUn, what exactly did they expect to happen?

I understand why you want to sidestep the question given it completely tears asunder your woeful argument

Do you really think that highly of yourself? Good grief. It doesn't. Or even close. Try a bit hard old chap.

I think it a a bit sad when in 2017, supposedly intelligent human beings are appearing in forums asking "oh, can I say this? Can I say that? Oh, this sounds a bit racist, so can I say that? Oh, professionally offended, oh. I said 'monkey' in a questionable context; is that racist?"

FFS, are your parents still taking you for a shit to wipe your arse as well?

MacKenzie was poking the wasps nest he fully knew what he was doing. The man is an oink of the highest order.

Do you really think that highly of yourself?

Saying cheeky monkey to someone and comparing a black person/person with black heritage to a monkey are not the same thing, for the reasons i stated- it's hardly a controversial point I am making.

One does not need to be bright to understand this point.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelvin_MacKenzie
br />
Go read and tell me if you think he is a bit racist.

FFS, are your parents still taking you for a shit to wipe your arse as well?

Saying cheeky monkey to someone and comparing a black person/person with black heritage to a monkey are not the same thing, for the reasons i stated- it's hardly a controversial point I am making.

One does not need to be bright to understand this point.

The point I was making (clearly badly) is that of course I appreciate I can call my mixed race niece a cheeky monkey and I have no issue with having myself referenced to as a monkey for physical similarities - it's all about a context. And as you have admitted in your edit about KM was not intentionally racist in his comment either. RB is a visually white man but by using the genus of his heritage it is possible to make a comment (an insulting one) about him looking vacant like an animal in a zoo into a racial one. I don't think anyone of intelligence would construe KM specific comment in this story as racially motivated even if the man himself is a racist. Treating this as a race issue is denigrating real race hate issues imo.

. And as you have admitted in your edit about KM was not intentionally racist in his comment either

Yeah all round top bloke, him and Sean ss Spicer should have a beer.

convert +1

MacKenzie is an idiot who needs to learn to keep his gob shut. But his latest piece racist ? The Liverpool Mayor's trigger seems to have fired early.

it's all about a context.

Yep, and in an environment where "fans" make monkey noises and throw bananas in order to abuse players, using the same imagery in a written piece on football is clearly ... err ... unwise, and suggest that the writer and all the other people at the paper who had a hand in publishing the article were spectacularly ignorant and naive. Or else they were quite happy for the piece to appear racist.

Sorry but it leaves 2 options here
Malicious or massively incompetent which is it?

Both.

I said he was not intentionally racist

Now I have occasionally used the wrong term or said something* and what i do is immediately apologise, say I never meant it that way and we move on. Has he or they done this ?

* We used to have buffets at our works for training, those of us who worked there used to raid them when they returned to the training
I once entered a room to see the entire thing empty and some of the attendees chuckled about it. I said "you greedy pigs" which is not offensive. Unfortunately I said it to a room of coppers and immediately backpedalled once i realised how they had taken this comment. I was not intentionally offensive but my reaction was what let the room know this NOT MY INITIAL WORDS and we all moved on as it was just an innocent comment.

Have I missed his apology for the insult that was not racist but could be taken that way?

[img] [/img]

Is Kelvin McKenzie a knob? Yes.

Was he being racist when he wrote that column? No.

So, PC correctness aside..

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

just saying...:-)

That statement reflects on you and your prejudice.

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

And shows a real lack of awareness given Liverpool hosts 2 Premiership football teams, one of which is one of the most successful in club football history. Nob

Does anyone actually think there is anyone in Liverpool around Ross Barclay's age, and earning similar money, that isn't a drug dealer?

It might be true, but it would be true of anywhere outside of London perhaps. Outside of professional sport there's not many mid twenties people earning anything like their wages. A few businessmen or young banking high flies. For most the big money comes later in life.

I firmly believe he was making a deliberate racial slur. And that he couched it precisely so he could feign ignorance and walk away laughing.

Who in the country outside banking in London makes as much as footballers? No-one. Not really the point though, is it?

It was just a cheap, crass and sneering dig at the people of Liverpool, because clearly he's not insulted them enough already.

The bloke is a weapons grade ****! I'd love to see him go to Liverpool and repeat his odious opinions. It's not limited to Scouser's either. I'm a United fan and I'd happily see him get the kicking he so richly deserves for this....

[img] [/img]

Binners, if i recall, the week (or thereabouts) before it was your lot at Hillsborough, and there was crowd surging in the United end that week too, but nowhere near the same scale, thank god...

The print unions used to be the strongest of unions till defeated by eddie shah and then murdock,hopefully if they where still strong they would have refused to print macenzies rant, but then again the sun is printed in knowsley just on the outskirts of liverpool councils area, and employs lots of merseysiders to print the rag, who could have refused if their union was strong enough.

oldtalent - Member
Not being a professionally offended handwringer, a northerner or a footballist, i am failing to see what the issue is after reading the article.