Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
Do we have a right to know why the football manager Gary Speed killed himself, if indeed he did kill himself? I’m not convinced. There’s a typically thoughtful and ruminatively controversial article by Stephen Glover in today’s Daily Mail. Stephen is critical of the inquest into Speed’s death, pointing out that the coroner was less
Does anyone, anywhere, understand the Labour Party’s position on the government’s intention to cap welfare benefits? I ask as a member of the Labour Party who is, of course, anxious to spread the message far and wide but is worried by what seem to be certain, um, inconsistencies of approach. So, on Question Time last
I was on a plane once that malfunctioned as it was trying to take off from JFK Airport in New York. There was a horrible screeching noise and some smoke and the thing skidded to a halt with its nose poking out over Long Island sound. Trucks pulled up alongside us and sprayed stuff. I
Just seen this in the latest copy of Private Eye, from its Pseuds Corner column: ‘I woke up with my wife and baby of six months on the small island of Burano in Venice where we have a lighthouse. We took our breakfast on the terrace of one of the best restaurants in the world,
Has Britain become a nation of immoral, lying, cheating, scumbags as the increasingly pious Peter Oborne seems to suggest in his latest article? Peter, who writes for such unblemished upholders of truth and decency as The Daily Mail, suggests that these days, if people found money lying about in the street, they wouldn’t hand it
It is a fairly horrible thing to find oneself on the same side of the fence as that gabbling imbecilic hag, Janet Street-Porter. The sort of occurrence which makes you question your entire belief system. But her article today about the ludicrous plan to build a vast airport on the Isle of Grain is absolutely
Late at night, when my wife is safely tucked up in bed, I sneak into my office and turn on the computer. I spend ages in front of the screen, mesmerised, panting with exertion. To my wife’s disgust — when she checks my browser history — I am almost always sporcling. ‘I married someone who
I told Boris early last summer that I thought he would lose his race to be re-elected as Mayor of London. Not out of a wish for him to do so – I like Boris, and Livingstone is almost the living embodiment of everything I dislike about the party of which, god help me, I
I’d like, this week, to draw your attention to the United Kingdom’s unjust treatment of some bearded maniacs. I realise, in writing this, that bearded maniacs may not be near the top of your list of stuff to worry about at the moment, or perhaps ever. Indeed it may even be the case that you
Now here’s some good news to cheer you all up. Microsoft has applied for a patent for a Smartphone ‘app’ (I hate that word) called ‘Avoid the Ghetto’. Basically it just tells you the places to stay away from if you’re in an unfamiliar city. You can imagine the areas it tells you stay from.
Do you prefer the singer Beyonce when she is black or when she is white? Or could you not give a monkey’s either way? I think I prefer her, marginally, when she is white, although it’s a close call. If she were black and not singing, that would be pretty good. It would be better
Those photographs of North Koreans wailing, weeping and gnashing their teeth in grief over the death of Kim Jong-il have suddenly become a little more explicable. Apparently people not observed to be extremely distraught faced six months in a labour camp. Perhaps we could introduce a similar stricture for when the Scotch people vote to
How can we persuade our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, to devote a little more time to making money for himself and rather less time for his many charitable concerns? There is only so much a man should be expected to give, especially after a lifetime of public service. We have forgotten too quickly, I
I see that the famous midget cook, Antony Worrall Thompson, has been cautioned for having nicked some wine and cheese from the Henley branch of Tesco. Indeed, it seems he was filmed tucking some Cathedral City Cheddar or something inside his bag on new fewer than five separate occasions. It’s been a tough few years
Here’s another one, part of an occasional series in these parts, of people from the newspapers who are, for often undefinable reasons, really, really annoying. Not always undefinable, mind. This is from a feature in the Guardian’s weekend magazine about what people got their kids for Christmas. First they speak to the parent, then to
I would have more sympathy for Diane Abbott if she hadn’t used precisely such ‘racist’ indiscretions against other people in the past. Not least me, frankly. I hope she might begin to see how absurd the whole business is. But I have the horrible feeling she will think herself an innocent who has been wrongly
I wonder what explanation will be found for the mysterious discovery of a woman’s body tucked behind a hedge on the royal estate of Sandringham? The obvious answer — that she was murdered and partially eaten by a senior member of the royal family, or perhaps a number of royal family members operating as a
A happy new year to all of you; I hope it is more pleasant than 2011. My resolution is to kick anyone who uses the word ‘chill’ to me in any context other than that referring directly to inclement weather or a touch of ague. Anyone who uses ‘chill’ in combination with the suffix ‘pill’
So, another year closes and, with it, the window of opportunity for murdering transgendered people. Henceforth it will simply not be worth the effort. Hitherto you could have murdered one of these sorts of person and have been out of prison in rather less than a decade. Now, though, thanks to the Justice Secretary Kenneth
Christmas is all about enjoying the look on the face of a loved one as he or she opens something which you know will fill them with great emotion. And so Christmas day came a couple of days early for me as I watched my wife open the Oftsed report on our daughter’s school and
