Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.

Football wants the ‘somewheres’ to get lost

Some years ago, when Millwall played West Ham United, the Millwall fans sang the following song (to the tune of ‘When The Saints Go Marching In’, if you want to hum along): ‘Oh east London, is like Bengal. Oh east London is like Bengal. It’s like the back streets of Delhi. Oh east -London is

Rod Liddle

England Lost/Gotta Get A Grip

Two songs in which Sir Michael informs us that he is distressed by both Brexit and Donald Trump. Released with, according to the 70-year-old singer, ‘urgency’: he can see that we are in trouble and was naturally anxious to help us out. The first, ‘England Lost’, is at least redeemed by a soupçon of wit.

If Brexit is dying, what about democracy?

Never meet your enemies — you might like them, and that ruins stuff. I had dinner with the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, about a year ago. During his time in office, Rowan came out with what I considered to be some of the most cringing, effete, left-liberal, self-abnegating rot I have ever heard.

My fears about the new ‘extremism commission’

The Egyptian-born Muslim cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi was once invited to speak in this country — and the row which developed as a consequence was both entertaining and instructive. Many people said he shouldn’t be given a visa because of his ‘extremism’. Others, such as the mainstream UK Muslim organisations, insisted that this was a libellous

Welcome to the green belt: a safe space for lily-livered Londoners

I am thoroughly enjoying Melissa Kite’s latest, justifiable, gripes which have been provoked by her move out of London. Stuff shuts too early, for a start. And there are signs everywhere telling you what you can and can’t do, officious Lib Dem and Labour parish councillors and a general air of nastiness. Also, they won’t

A letter to… The Guardian’s sanctimonious letter writer

This one is priceless, believe me. Truly priceless. For a long time now I’ve been buying The Guardian for its unintentional hilarity. Not just the columnists, but even more so the letters pages. This is from their fatuous Saturday family section: yes, it is a minor miracle that such a reactionary receptacle still exists at

A vicious reaction to a very bad word

Having a nigger in the woodpile and a skeleton in the closet are closely related problems, although subtly different. In the first case it is a problem which is lurking, hitherto unseen, but which may pop up very soon to cause mayhem and mischief. In the second case it is a problem which has been

Rod Liddle

Jay-Z: 4.44

Grade: B – All criticism is pointless, I suppose, given the sheer magnitude of the Shawn Corey Carter machine — his billions of dollars, his millions of sales, his ubiquity. This is the rapper even whitey can git down to, big pal of the Obamas, bad-ass Bedford-Stuyvesant gangsta made good. But even when Jay-Z and

Beth Ditto: Fake Sugar

Boy is she fat, and getting fatter. I realise this is something we’re not meant to mention when talking about Beth — but it’s kinda the elephant in the room. Literally. And I worry about the lass. These days she makes Mama Cass look like Edie Sedgwick. Of course, we should accept her as she

Rod Liddle

Being anti-smoking damages your mental health

I lit a cigarette in an open-air car park a couple of years ago as I was walking to the exit. I noticed a Nissan Micra heading towards me from the far corner and thought at first it was going to run me over. But it pulled up alongside and a woman put her head

The Corbyn coalition

One of the most disappointing things about the general election for me was how few people must have read Nick Cohen’s article ‘Why You Shouldn’t Vote For Jeremy Corbyn’ before entering polling booths on 8 June. Or perhaps they did read it and thought: up yours, mate. The more I think about it, the more

If you’re not tired of London, you’re tired of life

London, city of the damned. City of incendiary tower blocks, jihadi mentals trying to slit your throat, yokels from Somerset up for the day to enjoy a spot of ramming Muslims in a white van. City of Thornberry, Abbott and Corbyn. City of Boris. City of anti-Semitic marches to commemorate Al Quds. City of Isis

Rod Liddle

Peter Perrett: How The West Was Won

Much though I loved it at the time, not a great deal of lasting worth came out of that fervid punk upheaval between 1976 and 1978. In terms of bands you would voluntarily listen to again, there was just The Clash and The Only Ones, in my book. The latter enjoyed no commercial success, despite

Labour should form a coalition with the DUP

So, they limp on, and Corbyn is justified in holding aloft the Queen’s Speech in jubilantly derisive fashion. Some of you Tories are no doubt hoping that Theresa May ‘recovers her mojo’ and that the past six weeks have been some weird transgression from her norm. No, sorry. She does not have a mojo. She

Where are the Tory hordes shrieking ‘lefty scum’?

The Conservative party lost the general election, even if they are still in power (at time of writing). It was a defeat — as awful and fundamental a defeat for the political right as any I can remember. Brexit is now endangered. And few would doubt that a subsequent election would mean a victory for

The Labour campaign in Middlesbrough South was a remarkable thing to see

One more quick observation on Labour. I was hanging around polling stations in my constituency on Thursday, somewhat in the manner of a wonk-nonce. The constituency is Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. The enthusiasm of the voters and of the Labour activists was genuinely startling (and in truth a little uplifting). They were absolutely avid

Boris Johnson is not the answer

I would direct you to Liddle passim for why we are now in this state of chaos. Even if Theresa May hadn’t run the worst election campaign in living memory (again, passim) she still wouldn’t have increased her majority by much at all. I knew that as a fact, an absolute certainty, on the day

Rod Liddle

Is enough enough? Then let’s start deporting

I divide my time between two constituencies, the first a rock-solid Conservative seat in the south-east of England, the other a Labour-held marginal (which the Tories expected to take) in the north-east of England. And the thing I have not seen in either place is a nice blue placard or poster saying ‘Conservative’. Not one