The Guardian, rather than being a bulwark against racial bigotry, had become an enabler of it.

New hire, Kelvin MacKenzie, in today’s edition, focused on ethnic bigotry: “In recent years, I’ve become aware of how language demeans settled minorities…”

Had to rub my eyes reading this. Here MacKenzie raises hypocrisy and chutzpah to the level of a clinical disorder. Less than 10 days ago this same man was wallowing in anti-Scot bigotry in the very same newspaper .

Kelvin MacKenzie article in the Guardian (this one) on the 15th March, refers to Scotland as “Jockestan” and, “taxpayers of Jockestan (Scotland)”, and “Our chums in Jockestan are subsidised ”

We ourselves wrote a below the line comment in the March 15 Guardian pointing out (best we remember it) that this in the context of the article was racially offensive, and that by definition, MacKenzie, despite his Scots sounding name, was a racist.

Instead of being shunned by “polite society” and the Fourth Estate, he was being feted by them. Such abuse of Scots was now an everyday transaction among the chattering and political classes. That rather than condemn this hate speech, the Guardian was happy to amplify it and promote it in that article.

Their response was to erase the post.

Now today March 24 below the line of MacKenzie’s latest article, the Guardian censors have been in a panic deleting comment after comment from readers pointing out MacKenzie’s hypocrisy and the Guardian’s role as enabler of racist speech and ethnic bigotry.

Indeed, there were so many posts deleted, that after a while, the string of customary notices (1) noting the deletions clearly became an embarrassment, and were themselves deleted to destroy all evidence.

We posted the following comment, only to have evidence of its existence completely erased, too – not even a notice to mark its passing.

“How very sad. The Guardian once a bulwark against racial bigotry has become an enabler of it. Now busy “disappearing” comment after comment exposing it.”

1 Guardian standard removal notice. This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.