Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
We have a government which is basically libertarian in its instincts, despite its current affection for telling us what we can and can’t do on a daily basis. This seems like a paradox or a non-sequitur, but it isn’t really, because in a sense it is a coalition government between libertarian politicians and a big-statist
I am having very little success in getting my collection of cartoons of great religious founders published. Perhaps it is because I am not known as a draughtsman and publications are notoriously conservative in hiring new talent. It is all very dispiriting. My drawings are, I think, puckish and yet respectful. For example, there is
We commemorated one year of lockdown by sacrificing a goat to the Highly Revered Virus Deity on a hastily assembled altar in the back garden, in front of a blazing fire. We then drank a little of the creature’s blood and danced naked around a pentagram, delivering incantations to the Covid Divine — Oh Great
A woman called Jenny Jones, now elevated to Baroness Moonbeam, or something, in the House of Lords has proposed a 6 p.m. curfew for all men everywhere. This would prevent men from killing women on the streets. Mrs Moonbeam is a member of the Green party and presumably agrees with their manifesto which insists that
Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of the former mayor of New York, Rudy, has been talking to the press about one of her hobbies. Apparently she likes nothing more than playing the role of a ‘unicorn’ — the third partner in a sexual liaison. She explained: ‘Finding the strength to explore these more complicated, passionate
23 min listen
This week’s episode features a reading of The Spectator’s leading article, on how devolution has created a democratic deficit in Scotland (00:50); our economics correspondent Kate Andrews on what keeps the Chancellor up at night (7:00); and Rod Liddle on the real cause of food poverty in the UK. (16:35).
‘We’re idiots, babe, it’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.’ I listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4 this week, because the channel finder on my car radio wasn’t working and so I was stuck with it. It was, as it almost always is, four left-wing ratbags moaning to one another. As I’ve
The Liberal Democrat party’s foreign affairs spokesgoblin, Velma from Scooby-Doo — or ‘Layla Moran’ as she is known to close friends and family —has decided that freedom of speech on university campuses is of absolutely no consequence. Indeed, she described the government’s initiative to preserve the rights of students to hear a diverse range of
Desperate to find someone to commemorate with a statue for having done great things, but who isn’t a white male, some people in Devon want to honour a couple of lesbian pirates. A statue of Anne Bonny and Mary Read has been proposed for the beauty spot of Burgh Island, to salute their important work
Your quiz for the week is to make the connection between the following people: fun-loving Greek hack Homer, veteran US centrist Democratic party politician Dianne Feinstein, dodgy-night-at-the-theatre president Abraham Lincoln and Middlesbrough-born peripatetic James Cook. The answer is that they are the latest individuals to have been ‘cancelled’ by the woke Taleban. Don’t worry, they’ll
We have reached Covid-19’s first anniversary in the UK — and I really think we should do something fitting to mark the occasion. The actual date is pretty much a moveable feast. The first patient in the UK known to have died of the disease was Peter Attwood, aged 84, on 30 January. But we
Grade: A– The early 1990s were a lovely time for rock music: Beck, Sparklehorse, Sugar, Green on Red and Royal Trux. I wish I’d savoured it all more at the time, not realising that Damon and Noel would come along decked in Union Jacks and suffocate us with the precious (Damon) and the oafish (Noel).
I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I caught only mysterious fragments of his speech, over the noise of the blender and stuff. ‘I want an hour — an hour — with my own teen wolf,’ Joe seemed to say at one point.
Grade: A- The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who else would you have up there? Kern, Gershwin, Ray Charles, maybe. Dylan for the words along with the music. But not, I think, John Lennon. It’s McCartney’s melodic imagination that captivates and sometimes staggers — ‘Here,
Has the coup happened yet? You have the advantage over me. It was supposed to have taken place on Sunday. Then it slipped back to Monday morning. When Monday morning came and went in a markedly coup-less state the date was revised to Wednesday. Anyway, there was to be a worldwide media blackout after which
The screenwriter Russell T. Davies has said that only gay actors should be cast in gay parts, believing this leads to greater authenticity. The obvious question here is how would Russell know who is gay and who is not gay when he comes to casting? It is not always obvious, surely. Do all gay actors
Depictions of Thomas Carlyle and David Hume in the Scottish Portrait Gallery will be altered to make it clear they were horrible racist bastards, apparently. All of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers are under review, including Adam Smith, who thought that people living beyond Europe were largely savage. I am not sure how they will alter
I took advantage of Google and NORAD’s ‘Santa tracking app’ to find out when my presents would be delivered. It says that my gifts should arrive in eight hours. Fine, I’m happy with that. Better than Hermes. But I notice three things. First, Google seems of the opinion that Santa is either a man or
‘Classic rock’ is a rather fusty old oxymoron, but then the term ‘classic’ is applied these days to chocolate bars and that most in-demand of consumer undurable, lavatory paper, so I suppose one shouldn’t complain. Covid-19 will probably be remembered as a ‘classic virus’ one day not too soon, when there are other more baleful
There was an acidic bravura and beauty in P.J. O’Rourke’s early journalism and a gleefulness in the ease with which it raised ire. Hitherto, satirists — and especially American ones — had tended to come from the left, none more so than O’Rourke’s mentor Hunter S. Thompson, who campaigned long and hard for George McGovern