Kelvin McFilth Elveden Fail

While the Murdoch press and its pals elsewhere in the Fourth Estate have been whining about all its hacks being put on trial, then being found Not Guilty, claiming that this is some kind of anti-press witch-hunt and that the Leveson Inquiry is somehow behind it all, there has been not a word about all the Police and prison officers who have, at the same trials, been found guilty, with most being sent to jail.

But today, all that changed with the latest otherwise totally missable column from the Sun’s former editor Kelvin MacKenzie, who has worked himself up into a suitably pointless froth over the case of Amanda Watts, who worked at the prison where singer George Michael was briefly incarcerated after he was discovered to have been under the influence of controlled substances while at the wheel of his car.

Ms Watts sold information to the Sun about Michael’s visitors. Kel was not happy: “George Michael was a global superstar and his time in jail was not only of interest to the public but also of public interest”. And to that I call bullshit. We don’t need to know what a cell at HMP Highpoint looks like. And we don’t need to know who turned up on visiting days. The only ones who “needed” that information were hacks wanting to flog more papers.

“Old Bailey juries repeatedly refused to convict journalists for paying public officials so when a judge gets a chance to make an exemplary sentence he takes it with both hands” blusters Kel. And yet more bullshit. Journalists have successfully claimed a mixture of public interest defence - no matter how questionable - along with their being given the contacts, and that they didn’t think it was wrong.

Cops and prison officers, on the other hand, know full well that they are not to divulge what is by definition confidential information, and especially not for money. Hence it is they who are being banged up, and Ms Watts is not the first, although Sun readers may find that surprising, as they haven’t been told about it. Kel, though, is not finished: “this disgusting sentence by a disgusting Establishment court” he rants.

That would be the same establishment that comprises senior politicians, top coppers, the head people at press organisations, all of whom have in the past colluded to cover up their misbehaviour and thus screw over the public - like, oh I dunno, how about the Hillsborough stadium disaster? And, while I’m at it, how about the still unsolved case of the Daniel Morgan murder? Or is that some other kind of “establishment” at work there?

Kelvin McFilth also manages to miss that Ms Watts, like all the other Police and prison officers who have been jailed for flogging information to the Murdoch press, put her trust in the Sun to keep her confidence - and they betrayed her. They shopped her in order to save their skins. Kel knows that. Yet he bleats at judges, “the establishment”, the cop who gave a statement outside court - anything but man up and be honest.

Kelvin McFilth fully deserves his nickname. He’s all wind and piss. And a congenital liar.