Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Rod Liddle and Maria Miller discuss selfie obsession” startat=85] Listen [/audioplayer]So it now seems pretty clear to me that we can no longer send women photographs of our genitals without worrying that we might be the subject of some horrible sting operation and consequently suffer public humiliation and possibly lose our jobs. One
It is a horrible thing to say, but I suspect that sooner or later we will begin to get irritated by the John Cantlie Show. Mr Cantlie is the British photojournalist who is being held captive somewhere in Syria by the maniacal and barbarous Islamic State. He has delivered two video lectures of a geopolitical
Can anyone explain why there are so many dead rabbits lying around at the moment? I’ve found three in my garden, untouched by predators, and the lanes nearby are festooned with carcasses. Also, my dog twice nearly caught a rabbit, which was behaving in a very un-rabbit-like lethargic manner. I wondered if, at first, it
‘No Jews, No Jews!’ the children were told when they attempted to enter the Sports Direct store in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The two kids were identifiable as Jewish from their school uniforms. They were 11 years old. It was a security guard who refused to let them enter the shop and, as ever when the media reports
Gaily into Uxbridge Station runs the red electric train, And alighting on the platform – he with the albino mane. Can he charm the blue-rinsed matrons, Past-it bankers, golf club patrons, Can he do it – yes he can! Well done Boris! Side-step Clacton, ‘Essex is no place for me, ‘Better here in leafy
Peter Tatchell has been awarded an honorary fellowship from Goldsmiths University for ’47 years of LGBTI activism’ and campaigning. I’m not sure I agree with these baubles, but if anyone deserves one, it’s probably Tatchell. A good man, by and large. Tatchell has in turn passed on his honorary fellowship to Palestine, as a statement
I have just spent a few moments in bed with the popular comedian Russell Brand and I have to say that I enjoyed it hugely. We did not have full penetrative sex, sadly, and when I say ‘in bed with’ I mean it sort of figuratively, or vicariously. What happened is that I watched Russell’s
So, there’s the final nail in the coffin of the ‘Better Together’ campaign. The Duchess of Cambridge is up the duff again and, according to The Daily Mail, being treated for morning sickness. Can of flat Coca Cola usually does the trick, according to women I’ve known who have suffered similarly, but they were admittedly
I saw MPs Peter Hain and Andrew Mitchell agreeing with each other on Newsnight about the need, now, to talk to President Assad, so that we might better combat the Islamic savages running amok in Syria and Iraq. Yee-haw. If I could see, two years back, that Assad was infinitely preferable to the majority of
My first act upon returning from my holiday was to sign the online petition to have the supremely irritating children’s cartoon figure Peppa Pig banned from television. I have always found the creature half-witted, arrogant and sinister, and the tune which accompanies her exploits is both grating and didactic. Further, even allowing for the usual
Apologies for the lengthy interregnum. I was away in the USA for almost three weeks and my mobile phone provider decided I should not be allowed to make or receive any calls while abroad, for which many thanks. Similarly, Hotmail decided I should not be allowed access to my own email account because I could
I was attacked by a swan the other day, as I walked along the bank of the River Stour in Kent. The creature climbed out of the water and lunged towards me, wings puffed up, making this guttural and hate-filled coughing noise. I kicked out at its stupid neck and told it to fuck off
Is your life saturated with racial meaning? The most common answer to this question, when I ask friends and acquaintances, and sometimes people in the street going about their business, is: ‘Your inquiry makes no sense whatsoever. It sounds like the sort of pretentious and thoroughly bogus question dreamed up by some idiotic sociology lecturer
I was a little saddened by Baroness Warsi’s resignation. I like the woman; it is an odd and disturbing thing to say, but I felt I had more in common with her – a Muslim, Asian, woman – than almost any other prominent Tory. I’m not sure why this is. Perhaps class has something to
While trawling down the Mail Online’s right-hand-side of the page porno strip, to consider analytically the latest photographs of Jessica Alba in a swimming costume, I came across a rather good piece of journalism by Stephen Glover. Yes, yes; you know this already. But the horrors inflicted by US/UK liberal evangelism on the world (and
Is it ever appropriate to use the word ‘slut’? I always take my lead from the Prime Minister and he has assured the country that it is never appropriate or acceptable, so henceforth I shall desist from employing the term. If, one evening, I come home from work to find my wife, naked, cheerfully and
Are all of Britain’s fasting Muslims about to die because of the heatwave? This is what’s worrying me as I sit in my darkened room — curtains drawn and lights down low, according to the official government advice. Dr Paul Cosford of something called ‘Public Health England’ said: ‘Many members of the Muslim community may
My young daughter has a furry beaver — lifelike in all but its eyes, which to me seem cold and dead. I bought it for her in the United States and I think it has pride of place within her impressive menagerie of anthropomorphised cuddly toy animals. There are also countless wolves which we have to
A fairly typically partisan report on the Israel and Palestine crisis last night on the BBC ten O Clock News. The focus was entirely on the killed or injured Palestinians, referred to exclusively as ‘civilians’; the point was made, at the top of the report, that Hamas had killed nobody. Yes, but only because Hamas
The best team won, and the best two teams reached the final. This is a comparatively rare event at a world cup. And it was a fine world cup in general, with plenty of things to gladden the heart – the hammering of Spain by the Netherlands, the hammering of Brazil by Germany, the eviction
