Newsnight: Kelvin MacKenzie, Tom Watson - and a question of the law.

Kelvin MacKenzie has just been on Newsnight up against the excellent Tom Watson MP  debating MetGate. Kelvin Gotcha Hillsborough MacKenzie, to give him his full name, has been associtated with News International most of his career. I am not sure if he is speaking for  Mordorch himself now, but his view is worth study. I am working from memory, and will edit it later when I can see the film or the transcript.

It is generally agreed that MacKenzie is unbelievably obnoxious; but that is what he wants us to feel, so that we do not address his arguments cooly. He speaks as though he is 100% right about everything. He probably feels that way. He is a believer, with all the confidence of a Free Market Fundamentalist zealot.

He opened with the "Labour/partisan" ploy. This is the one where Labour are only making a fuss because they lost the election. *yawn*.

Then he upped the ante, strengthened it with the vivid image of Labour licking Murdoch's arse, only to be kicking it now that Mordorch has transferred his hairy affections to smooth tongued Dave. Which is true, but a smokescreen. This is not about party politics, it is about real politics, about who is or is not above the law.

He said that MPs were against the newspapers in revenge for their treatment of the MP expenses scandal. Good point, but still a diversion from the real issue, the violation of privacy and breach of Parliamentary privilege (or equivalent: the fact that MPs are representatives of the ultimate power in the land, i.e. the people).

He then went on to minimise the problem, saying that journos always had and always will break the law, and that it was OK to do so.

And then, at the end, he came right out with it. Newspapers are above the law.


Or are they?

It's up to us, the people. A battle is starting, a direct contest between democracy and the corporations, in the shape of Mordorch.