Should MacKenzie have Kept his comments to himself?

I do not know if anyone watched question time on BBC 1 on Thursday. There was a question over Gorden Brown. Kelvin Mackenzie, whos ia columm writer for the SUN Newspaper down in England, branded Scottish people as money grabbing spendthrifts. He also stated that Us Scots only survive on hand outs from hardworking English.

Oh great so that mean I sit on backside all day and dont do any work aye.. I for one find his comments unwarranted and ridiculous. Alot of people in scotland have regarded his comments as racist.

So far more than 350 people have complained to the BBC over his comments, plus the audience booed him while he was making his remarks.

I find rather insulting these comments comming from a guy, who's own grandfather who was Scottish, was a pioneer himself. Think Mackenzie should remember, who made him his wealth in the first place.

How do other member from down south or in London feel about this. Do you think his comments are warranted. OR should he had kept his comments to himself?

Link is provided below:

Question Time



[edit on 14-10-2007 by spencerjohnstone]

I can believe it, I'm not checking your source. It's funny, the Sun has an English and Scottish copy, and I went to Scotland by train one day last year, and by pure chance picked up a Sun on the way up, and saw one in a pub when I got to Edinburgh. Anyways the back pages were effectively 'up England' and 'F*** England,' no prizes for guessing which one was which, but I see a foreign owned British institution trying to play us off. For the record, the most hospitable strangers I ever found were in Scotland.

i don't think its racist at all, i don't think its anymore offensive than scottish ministers saying its the 'union' that is slowing scotland down.

id love to see a poll on how many scots actually class themselfs as 'british' put it this way i couldn't imgaen a scotsman saying "i'm british" when asked what nationality they are.

i actually do agree with large parts in what he's saying to be honest - scotland would be lost without england and the union (not the other way round) and just to add my grandad was scottish too.

Originally posted by st3ve_o
scotland would be lost without england and the union (not the other way round)

you think so?

without the union all of the north sea oil revenue raised over the last 30 odd years would have been solely scottish for a start.

a helluva lot of political leaders would never have served in the house of commons (on second thoughts maybe that would have been a good thing) and the history of this country would be a lot different.

by the way - i live in england, am married to an english lass and am proud to be british. i cannot abide the SNP and their politics but i am very proud to be a scotsman.

reply to post by redled


This just shows what a populist, schizophrenic rag The Sun is. Personally, I wouldn't even buy it to use as toilet paper. Mr. Murdoch and the other media barons shouldn't be allowed to own so many media outlets in this country - it's corrupt and dangerous.

To the point... MacKenzie (his surname alone suggests Scottish roots somewhere along the line ) just showed himself to be what he is. I'm not at all surprised and I find his views on Scotland repellent. Has he actually visited Scotland recently? Does he even live in the twenty first century? His comments suggest an ignorant, self-centred and ill-informed opinion... if he's a product of the British education system then it makes me ashamed to think I went through the same one.

I would also point out that he didn't even defend England - he mentioned only "London and the South East". So, if you live in the South West, Midlands, the North, Wales or Northern Ireland then - according to Mr. MacKenzie - you're a "socialist Scot who wants to spend every single penny you earn, never forget that." I am neither a socialist or a Scot, but I find the remarks offensive.

Shame on you, MacKenzie. You deserved every jeer you got on Question Time for spouting such rubbish.

To answer the OP's direct question, of course Kelvyn MacKenzie has every right to air his views, and if he firmly believes this, and had a platform to air them from, then that is his right, and I would defend his right to say this.

Now, do I agree with him...........Ahhh that is a very different question!!!

And I will state, I do not live in London or the South East but work in the South East.

I think it was interesting that he singled out Scotland. I wonder how much of his comments were based on the SNP's aim of independance for Scotland. If the SNP were seriously looking for an indepenance Scotland, then I would agree we should review spending for Scotland if it is no longer going to be part of the Union, and adding value to UK PLC.

reply to post by Freedom ERP


actualy part of the SNP's last manifesto was to have a referendum on independence if they won the elections to the scottish parliament. as they did win, Alex Salmond has said that the referendum will be held at the end of the current term.

Kelvin MacKenzie.

Like as if he's worth taking seriously about anything or liable to have a good grasp of the reality & technicalities of anything.

The man is a walking tabloid-brain.

No surprises for finding he speaks in simplistic and thoroughly offensive terms.

Well, I'm really annoyed, not at MacKenzie's comments, but the amount of bleeding hearts in this country. The "I am OUTRAGED!" argument sounds hollow to me. We Scots have blamed everything on the English, and now when this non-entity blabs about how we're a nation of scroungers; (causing controversy for everyone to start reading his column, cause nobody did before.) we start crying our wee eyes out. I'm not defending this guy. He's just a racist demagogue breathing molten horse. I'm just really disappointed at how we Scots have reacted. I mean, SO what? We don't hate the English as much as we used to. It's kind of refreshing to find someone who hates us as a race of people. We've been doing it to the English for too long, though to be fair it has lessened over the past 10 years.

This just furthers the SNP's agenda. Kelvin MacKenzie is a Scottish Nationalist in disguise. What better way to promote Scottish nationalism then anti-Scottish sentiments?

[edit on 17/10/07 by MacDonagh]

[edit on 17/10/07 by MacDonagh]

Hmm... I don't see how his comment on Question Time was racist (a word that's often misused). There's no such thing as a Scottish race, nor an English/Welsh/Irish one - racially, the peoples of the British Isles are mongrels

They were certainly ignorant and daft, however.

reply to post by Ste2652


a few years ago a Scotsman, living in england, got sick of being called a "jock *********" (insert any pejorative term) whenever he went into his local pub for a pint. So he took the pub landlord to court claiming racial abuse/discrimination. the case got thrown out on the grounds above.

BUT

at the same time an English family, living in Scotland, claimed they were being racially abused/discriminated against by members of the community they lived in and they won their case.

go figure.

It might be something to do with Scotland and England having two different legal systems, maybe? Scottish Law might define racism more broadly than English Law or something.

I can't think of any other reason for such similar cases having different results either side of the border.

which may point to something else. the fact that some people dont see the remarks that they make could be regarded as racist by someone else.

couldn't this be seen as a form of "institutional" racism?

let me give you an example. i work for a large company. i have worked for this company in Scotland and in England.

when working in Scotland we had colleagues that were English and the only time any mention of their nationality was made would be, say, during a major sports event (world cup etc) when a bit of ribbing would take place. we also had other nationalities working there and they were treated as equals in the workplace.

now that i am in England the remarks about MY nationality are constant and sometimes not in humour. again we have other nationalities at work, mainly eastern european, and some of the comments passed about them are made with real hate behind them.

now this is the same company with the same values but branches located in different countries. does this point to ignorance or something else.

one of my Polish friends once asked why i spoke differently to the other staff that they worked with. I explained that I was Scottish and almost instantly i found myself with a lot of new friends because i was not English!!

reply to post by supersaint


I suppose a bit of good-natured banter over sporting events and so forth is fine, but - as you say - when it becomes malicious, it's completely unacceptable.

It's interesting to hear your experiences in Scotland and England... I'm afraid I don't have any answers as to why you see the behaviour you do, but sometimes I get the feeling that some people who think of themselves as 'English' have problems or issues defining what their nationality is and what it means to them, whereas in Scotland there is a stronger sense of identity. This is probably to do with the fact that, because England is the biggest nation in the United Kingdom, Scotland has retained its identity much more vigorously due to it being significantly smaller than England. Could it be that this makes people who think of themselves as English jealous?

There's also the whole issue about the North of England having many similarities to Scotland (perhaps more than it does to the South (East) of England - economically, socially and politically). I live in Yorkshire, and you'd be surprised how many people say they're 'Yorkshire' rather than 'English'. And, indeed, how many people say they're a 'Londoner' or 'Cornish' or what have you depending where you are and who you ask.

Maybe I'm wrong, but it'd be interesting to hear other people's views on this.

I'm not sure what you experienced is racism (though it could be against your Polish colleagues, depending what was said, since the Poles are originally Slavic), but it's certainly xenophobic and wrong.