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May 11, 2006updated 22 Nov 2022 7:16pm

Return of the Mac – Kelvin back at Sun

By Press Gazette

Dominic Ponsford

Arguably the Sun’s most
famous former editor, Kelvin MacKenzie, is returning to his roots
with a new regular column in the paper.

A MacKenzie return has
been mooted since the paper’s star columnist, Richard Littlejohn,
acrimoniously left the paper last October. And he looks set to fill
that right-wing gap with a similarly spleen-venting weekly page.

His first contribution today included an attack on Labour: “I
haven’t enjoyed myself so much in years. Watching the Blair project
collapse in ruins is fantastic.”

And on the French: “Quelle surprise! A survey has found that
two out of three Britons who move to France are coming home…Take my
word for it; France is for a weekend, not for life.”

MacKenzie, 59, led The Sun during its Thatcherite heyday –from
1981 to 1993 – and is remembered for his legendarily forthright
management style and for front pages such as “Freddy Star ate my
hamster” and "Gotcha!" when the Argentine warship the General Belgrano was
sunk.

Since then he has made a fortune as chief exec of talk radio
company Wireless Group and lost a smaller one in a failed bid to rescue
magazine publisher Highbury.

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