Kelvin MacKenzie Offends Scots After Calling Nicola Sturgeon 'The Lady Who Runs Jockistan'

Kelvin MacKenzie Just Offended An Entire Country
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BBC

One of The Sun's most controversial former editors upped his game on Monday by not just offending a whole city, but an entire country.

Kelvin MacKenzie, recently re-hired as a columnist for the Murdoch-owned paper, was behind the infamous 1989 front page story on the Hillsborough disaster, which put the blame for the 96 deaths on Liverpool football fans.

It was described in an editorial published after he left as "the most terrible mistake in our history", and a boycott on The Sun newspaper in Liverpool still remains.

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Left, the rubbished '89 front page, right, The Sun's correction in 2012

But the veteran commentator this week caused uproar in Scotland, after referencing a highly contentious phrase considered by some as a slur against Scots.

In an interview with the BBC's Daily Politics, MacKenzie branded First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon "the lady who runs Jockistan".

Talking about Lib Dem leader Tim Farron on the second day of his party's annual autumn conference, Mackenzie said: "He's got 8 MPs - nobody cares, you know? We care more about the lady who runs Jockistan."

His comment was meant with instant uproar, with some Scots taking Mackenzie to task for the alleged "racist" slur.

Many also piled in to criticise the BBC for not challenging Mackenzie's remark.

The news comes months after a heckler was forcibly removed from a Tory election campaign event in May this year after he accused David Cameron and his party of stirring up racism against Scots.

Party faithful booed as the heckler spoke and was ejected from the garden centre in Twickenham where the Prime Minister was speaking, decrying comments such as Boris Johnson's warning of an "ajockalypse" if the SNP were to wield influence over a Labour government after the election.

A spokesperon for The Sun told HuffPost UK that Mackenzie was employed as a columnist and "therefore his opinions do not necessarily reflect those of the newspaper".