Kelvin MacKenzie

<img src="http://image.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2008/06/13/kelvin300x230.jpg" width="460" height="276" alt="Former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie"/>

Kelvin MacKenzie is a former editor of The Sun.

Roy Greenslade writes:

As editor of the Sun for 12 years, from 1981, MacKenzie was the master of publicity stunts that turned politicians from all parties into a laughing stock. He launched venomous attacks on Neil Kinnock, Tony Benn and "Red Ken" Livingstone; and his paper was scathing about John Major, Norman Lamont and Michael Heseltine. Among its most memorable, and cruel, headlines were those concerning the private peccadilloes of ministers, such as David Mellor ("From toe job to no job") and Tim Yeo ("Off Yeo go, you dirty so and so")
Davis can have no idea what is about to hit him. Nor, for that matter, can MacKenzie, who is spontaneous rather than a strategist. He will, though, have two big advantages. First, his campaign will be funded by Rupert Murdoch. One has to wonder at the audacity of an Australian-American media mogul backing a Sun columnist to try to win a British parliamentary seat. It does not link Murdoch to a particular party, but it does open him up to scrutiny about his political involvement in this country.