Party faces rough ride from former 'Sun' editor MacKenzie

As editor of The Sun his many targets included Graham "Turnip" Taylor, Neil Kinnock and a legion of Eurocrats. And in his latest project Kelvin MacKenzie is expected to give a good kicking to embattled Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith.

Executives from Channel 4 have signed up Mr MacKenzie to deliver what promises to be a withering critique of the Opposition in a programme to be broadcast next year.

Mr MacKenzie, chairman and chief executive of TalkSport, has vowed in the programme to repeat his famous humiliation of the Tories under John Major. "I'll be getting out the John Major shit bucket and pouring it all over Iain Duncan Smith," he said.

The "shit bucket" refers to a conversation Mr MacKenzie had with the former Tory prime minister when he was editor of The Sun during the exchange rate mechanism crisis in September 1992. Mr Major phoned Mr MacKenzie after the Government had been forced to withdraw from the ERM on "Black Wednesday" to ask how he planned to cover the story.

The editor is reported to have told the Prime Minister that he had a "bucket of shit" which he was going to empty over him and his party the following day.

A spokeswoman for Channel 4 said Mr MacKenzie had been headhunted for the role because the Tory party "was a subject close to his heart". Mr MacKenzie built his reputation by turning The Sun into the voice of working classes that prospered under Margaret Thatcher's rule in the 1980s.

The feared but respected editor remorselessly vilified the former Labour leader Neil Kinnock, culminating in a Sun front-page headline on election day in April 1992 which said: "If Kinnock wins today, will the last person to leave Britain please turn off the lights."

The programme, which is scheduled to run in the first quarter of next year, will be produced by 3BM, which worked with Mr MacKenzie on a Channel 5 documentary about libel laws broadcast earlier this year.