After listening to an item on the Today programme this morning, I am looking forward with greater anticipation than usual to Kelvin MacKenzie's column in The Sun this week. I'll explain why in a second.
First, let me deal with the nonsensical complaints about his supposedly incendiary remarks about Scottish people on Question Time. I sincerely hope that the BBC - or Ofcom, should it become involved - do not treat the complainants with any degree of seriousness. In purely technical terms, Kelvin's comments may be regarded as racist. However, the point about genuine racism, to coin a term, is that it refers to those who, because they are powerless to cope with discrimination, suffer for it. That is patently untrue of the Scots in relation to the rest of the British people (just as it was of the Welsh when Anne Robinson upset them in 2001).
Now, let me predict a subject that Kelvin might be expected to address in his next column: Liverpool. I heard an interview this morning with a Liverpudlian communication workers' union leader who, in justifying his members' unofficial strike action, said everything that is guaranteed to send Kelvin into a rage.
If he heard that, I said to myself, it will confirm all his prejudices about "socialist Liverpool". Then I remembered that the hammer of the Scots may be required to keep his thoughts on Scousers to himself. The Sun is desperate to find some way of winning back readers on Merseyside who have been boycotting the paper ever since Kelvin insulted them with his disgraceful coverage in the aftermath of the 1989 Hillsborough tragedy.
I'd guess that this week's phone conversation between Kelvin and The Sun's editor, Rebekah Wade, could be riveting stuff to eavesdrop. Where is Clive Goodman when you need him?
