Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
Grade: A Hell, there’s a lot not to like, or even to be a little suspicious of, with this young woman. Her politics are, as you might have guessed, banal and stupid. She has been in a relationship with the ghastly Matty Healy of the 1975. But she has huge talent and is probably a
The number of people arriving here in small boats has increased since Sir Keir Starmer was elected Prime Minister on 4 July last year. The 20,000 figure was passed in December. Perhaps the increase is a consequence of these disparate individuals yearning to live in a country in which Angela Rayner is the Deputy Prime
Several women who worked with Russell Brand at the BBC have revealed that they were too scared to make official complaints about the lunatic’s behaviour. I dare say it will astonish you to learn that Mr Brand seemed to display a somewhat predatory sexual nature and was apt to touch young ladies inappropriately, though Brand
It is always upsetting to watch a woman enmired in distress and so I thought I might ride on my trusty charger to the assistance of Rachel Reeves, the Chancellor, with a few suggestions as to where she might make spending cuts. Rachel needs these cuts because she can’t raise taxes and the British economy
When I first saw the headline I was highly optimistic. Sir Keir Starmer had identified the threat to society posed by ‘young men in their bedrooms’. What would follow, surely, must be a polemic in the style of Robert Baden-Powell or John Harvey Kellogg on the dangers of masturbation. It’s about time this was politicised,
Last Saturday I was making my way across the road from St Pancras to King’s Cross when I noticed a large bearded man blundering towards me, dodging the traffic, with a look of great urgency on his face. Assuming he was one of the 78 per cent of people in the capital who are mentally
People don’t like to use the term ‘vibe shift’, but I suspect it will turn out to be rather more than that. Certainly, I have never known opinion to change so rapidly – almost overnight. I’m talking about Donald Trump, or, more properly, how he is regarded. On Saturday morning, I was presenting my new
I can see one possible benefit of having a full inquiry into the almost exclusively Muslim grooming gangs who raped and assaulted and in some cases murdered young white girls and are perhaps still doing so in a selection of Britain’s ghastliest towns. The number of lawyers it would employ and the enormous salaries they received
Do you know, I have noticed a certain thawing in the BBC’s attitude to the American entrepreneur, Elon Musk. I wonder what might have occasioned such a sharp change in mindset of late? It is all a bit of a mystery. I never believed that Musk would bung Reform UK £100 million, and as the
Lying in bed pissed on Boxing Day night, I was visited by the ghost of Christmas Future, dressed in a grey jacket with a velvet collar, hovering over my pit cackling and in a similar state, alcohol-wise, to myself. It seemed very happy, this ghost. It led me to a graveyard where it pointed, in
Grade: A+ In a desperate wish to avoid the appellation of a derided genre, this young man from Asheville, North Carolina has been described by the press as Americana, slacker rock, indie and alt-country. But we at The Spectator will call it how it is: this is country rock, pure and simple. And if country
We are approaching the deadline for the prestigious ‘Most Odious Political Commentator of the Year’ award. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart’s joint bid is so far out in front of the pack, that the result is surely a foregone conclusion. But this should not deter us from running through some of the other noble contenders.
71 min listen
Welcome to a special festive episode of The Edition podcast, where we will be taking you through the pages of The Spectator’s Christmas triple issue. Up first: our review of the year – and what a year it has been. At the start of 2024, the outcome of the US election looked very different, the UK had a
I suppose it is a mild surprise that Fifa didn’t choose Yemen to host the 2034 World Cup, as the bosses of that awful organisation seem determined to make football do a tour of the world’s most primitive and dangerous hellholes. Instead, it’s Saudi Arabia. Of course it is. Over the last ten years the
Please excuse the tone of jubilation, but I have been dancing around my kitchen for the past couple of days, in a state well beyond elation, at the removal from power of Bashar al-Assad’s murderous regime in Syria and its successors who, I am convinced, are a little like our own Liberal Democrats, except with
The evangelical preacher Stephen Green has had his conviction upheld – for standing quite near an abortion clinic in Ealing with a Bible verse in his hands in protest last February. Remarkably, this act is illegal in the UK today. Green argued that he was not protesting about the women entering the clinic, but against the
The last time I took my wife to watch Millwall play a home game, a gentleman a few rows in front of us took grave exception to the behaviour of an opposing player and identified him, very loudly, as the author of The Critique of Pure Reason – repeatedly and with venom. Having vented his
30 min listen
The Football Governance Bill is currently being considered in the House of Lords. It’s designed to establish an independent football regulator. No team in the football pyramid will be allowed to play professionally without the regulator’s permission. Does the Premier League really require these sorts of regulations? Will such a rigid system, and unprecedented powers,
I mentioned a couple of days ago being underwhelmed by Orbital, Samantha Harvey’s Booker Prize-winning novel. But I am a glutton for punishment, and continuing to ignore my long-held practice of never reading Booker winners, I bought last year’s victor – Prophet Song, by Paul Lynch. As I mentioned, this is about a nasty right-wing
Did you sign it, then? And if so, what were your expectations? That Sir Keir Starmer would look at the figures and say – perhaps with a tinge of remorse – ‘Yup, that’s it, I’m bang to rights, we’ll have an election?’. Or were you simply hoping to annoy him? If so, I assume you