Saturday, July 21, 2012

MacKenzie Confronted Over Hillsborough Lies

Last night's edition of Any Questions on BBC Radio 4 (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qgvj/episodes/player )  was enlivened by Owen Jones' comments. Particularly pleasing was his trenchant condemnation of fellow panellist & well-known liar Kelvin MacKenzie over Hillsborough.
"Let's not forget how Kelvin MacKenzie treated the families of the dead," Owen declared.
MacKenzie was audibly rattled, mumbling about the need to wait until the release of the Hillsborough documents in September before making any judgement, an stance clearly at odds with his penchant for smears, hearsay & invention.
Owen also challenged him to name his source for the Hillsborough smears. Not surprisingly, the reptile refused. Just for the record, the lies were transmitted to MacKenzie by the then chief constable of South Yorkshire police, Peter Wright, a former chief constable of Merseyside police, Kenneth Oxford & a Tory MP for the Sheffield Hallam constituency at the time, Irvine Patnick.
MacKenzie's comments throughout the programme cemented his reputation as the arch-practitioner of sewer journalism. By the end of the programme, he must have privately wished he hadn't appeared. MacKenzie had already chickened out of an interview with the BBC's Nick Higham about Leveson the previous day (https://twitter.com/highamnews/status/225893486241673216 ).

No comments: