He described the main television news programmes as 'dull and regimented clones of each other, working to news values light years away from the interests of the great swathes of the population'. He was not challenged on either of these statements. Yet when MacKenzie was its editor, the Sun discouraged 'great swathes of the population' from defending their 'interests'. In the world of the Sun and the News Bunny, ordinary people are merely passive consumers of the trifling, the puerile, the trashy and the pornographic. Old people are of no account, unless they serve as victims.
Young people are morons or drug-dealers.
The solidarity of working people seeking their rights is redundant - like them. MacKenzie's audience of fashionably suited marketing men listened attentively to his aggressive banalities. It was clear they did not regard him as a buffoon in a dirty mac. Indeed, a certain respect was in the air. Mark Damazer, the editor of BBC TV News, was almost deferential in conceding that 'Kelvin has certainly got a point, in the narrow sense.