Rod Liddle

Profile: Full name: Roderick E. L. Liddle Area of interest: Politics, media, culture, current affairs, sport Journals/Organisation: The Sunday Times | The Spectator Email: rod.liddle@sunday-times.co.uk Personal website: Website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/rodliddle Blog: http://www.spectator.co.uk/rodliddle Representation: The Speakers Agency | Jillie Bushell Associates | Noel Gay Networks:

Biography: About: Education: Laurence Jackson comprehensive school, Guisborough; London School of Economics Career: Worked for the Labour Party as research assistant and speechwriter, 1983/87; Reporter with Western Mail, The South Wales Echo; Editor at BBC Radio 4's Today programme, 1997-2002; Columnist with The Guardian, 2002/03 Current position/role: writes for The Sunday Times, The Spectator (associate editor) and Country Life also writes/written for: writes an 'agony uncle' column for GQ magazine Other roles/Main role: Other activities: Presenter of current affairs programmes on TV Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Lynn Barber: Liddle at large 5th October, 2003 Broadcast media: Editor at BBC Radio 4's Today programme, 1997-2002. Presenter (with Kate Silverton) of BBC2's Weekend - political discussion programme with live audience and panel debate, 2003. Appearances on BBC's Question Time, Have I Got News For You, and Channel Five's The Wright Stuff, 2003/4; team captain for two series of BBC's Call My Bluff, 2003/4. Presenter, Lion Television/Channel 4's Some Of My Best Friends Are... Presented and authored Channel 4's Immigration is a Timebomb, 2004; Sky TV's Infidelity, 2005; Channel 4's Evangelism, 2005; Channel 4's The New Fundamentalists, 2006; Channel 4's Battle for the Holy Land, Love Thy Neighbour, 2007. See IMDb Video: Controversy/Criticism: BBC considered an article Marching back to Labour in his Guardian column, Sept 2002 - criticising Countryside Alliance marchers - to be partisan, and he was given an ultimatum to either give up the column or resign, he resigned. Recent documentary, Battle for the Holy Land: Love Thy Neighbour, was criticised by Melanie Philips for misunderstanding Jewish history 'I've never had a go at Muslims, only Islam', interview with Ian Burrell, The Independent, 5th January 2009 Awards/Honours: BBC Radio 4's Today programme, during Rod Liddle's editorship: Sony Silver, 2002 - reporting by Barnie Choudhury and Mike Thomson into the reasons for race riots in the north of England; Sony Bronze, 2003 - reports by Angus Stickler into paedophile priests; Amnesty International Media Award, 2003 - reports by Andrew Gilligan's into the sale of illegal landmines Scoops: Other:

Books & Debate: Love will destroy everything (2004) OCLC56651336 Too beautiful for you: tales of improper behaviour (2005) OCLC54487449 Latest work: Speaking/Appearances: http://www.intelligencesquared.com/people/l/rod-liddle

The Sunday Times: Column name: Remit/Info: Politics, media, culture, current affairs Section: Features Role: Commentator Pen-name: Email: rod.liddle@sunday-times.co.uk Website: http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/rodliddle Commissioning editor: Day published: Sunday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Divided into five topics Average length: 1150 words (lead topic 450)

Articles: 2013 Those foreigners – so racist and, unlike us, so honest - One of the things I’ve never much liked about foreigners is how racist they are - 19th May Professor Hawking’s protest is a brief history of humbug - The behaviour of Stephen Hawking has become as confusing as that of those fairly small particles he gets so excited about, muons and bosons and the like - 12th May The BBC doesn't need respect - it needs a few more bullies - Is there enough bullying taking place within the BBC? - 5th May Warning to foreigners who bite: this nation contains nuts - Almost everything that is bad or despicable or simply disgusting in life is a consequence of foreigners. And, by and large, the swarthier the foreigners, the more despicable they are likely to be - 28th April Get Brighton to A&E – it’s overdosing on liberal claptrap - There’s a language everyone has to use these days and it is very difficult to get the hang of - 21st April The last non-hate crime: giving straight, white men a black eye - It is getting more and more tricky to know whom one can punch or vilify in the street - 7th April Don’t dial 999 – PC Plod’s too busy assassinating cows - When the police in Lincolnshire were informed last week that a cow was wandering freely around the town of Grantham and had taken up residence in a local authority car park without paying, this is what they did - 30th March Great Train Robber dies at 81 – but that’s enough about his IQ - What an enormous joy it was to see Ronnie Biggs, his face resembling a meat pie, snarling and... - 24th March Yes, Lord Ahmed – and that vulture was a Mossad agent too - The Jews have been accused of being up to no good again - 17th March Marriage is fine – if you want to explode like Chris ’n’ Vicky - I hope the homosexuals who have been clamouring and agitating for the right to get married take a... - 10th March Bless me, Father – you keep so much under your cassock - My late mother forbade me to go anywhere near our local Roman Catholic church - 3rd March Hail Thatcher and Blyton? Well, they were hardly Stalin - What should we do about Thatcher and Blyton? - 17th February I stay at home. I’m a dad. What more do you want? - What a thrill it is to be part of a pioneering minority - 27th January Come to my Great War party. Please bring a victory song - How should we, as a country, commemorate the centenary of the start of the First World War? - 20th January Global warming is just resting. Loons, please do the same - Global warming has apparently had enough of us, and it’s gone away for a bit - 13th January Run for it, islanders: the non-colonialist Argies are coming - I am entirely in favour of handing Las Malvinas back to Argentina on the principle that the islands are only 400 miles from Buenos Aires - 6th January

Articles: 2012 Forget Twitter louts, PC Plod, there are real crooks to follow - I see “Suralan” has stepped into the debate over whether or not Piers Morgan should be kicked out - 30th December And, lo, Patten is still BBC chairman and I am sore afraid - Christmas is, of course, a time for miracles. It’s a traditional thing, I believe - 23rd December First pardon Turing, then we’ll nick that racist nut Churchill - The BBC should have more gay and lesbian presenters for children’s television programmes - 16th December Beneath the pious froth, Starbucks is a full-fat hypocrite - 9th December Blairite munchkins and leftie lizards run the whole show now - Is the Leveson inquiry into press standards being subverted by a shadowy conspiracy of left-liberal, alien, lizard-type creatures, as the Daily Mail suggested on Friday? - 18th November Relax: we’re all in the hands of ‘Adolf’s little girl’ - Is Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, really the secret daughter of Adolf Hitler, as so many people maintain? - 11th November The coalition wind blows both ways but it’s just hot air - What’s happening with on-shore wind farms, then? - 4th November Typhoon Conrad’s just blown smug TV to smithereens - I will bet that right now some enterprising television producer is importuning Lord Black of Crossharbour - 27th October Let Galloway’s show go on – even when all Respect is gone - What on earth would we do without George Galloway? You have to say that the Respect MP for Bradford West gives of himself relentlessly for our amusement; scarcely a week goes by without him delivering thoroughly entertaining and deranged behaviour - 21st October Abu Hamza may be gone but freedom is still on the hook - So farewell, Abu Hamza. It was fun having you here, but you had to go - 7th October Bravo, Mr Nasty: pushy PCs deserve a crack of the whip - It is vitally important, I have always found, that when shouting obscenities at the police one should not disclose one’s real identity - 23rd September Will the last Lib Dem to desert please give Clegg a backbone - Some startling news emerged from an opinion poll last week: apparently there is a handful of people in this country still planning to vote for the Liberal Democrats - 16th September Pass the fire hose – Edwina has curried her colleagues again - Edwina Currie: the gift that keeps on giving. Long after we had expected the former minister to shut up and go away, she is still howling about past injustices - 9th September Ker-ching! Let the oligarch wars rage on in broke Britain - It is time to celebrate the rich, multicultural diversity of life in Great Britain - 2nd September At last — a crack in the dam of the great exam scam - So, let us gather together and mourn the passing of a wonderful tradition of late British summer - 26th August Storm the Foreign Office – Assange has sent it loopy - Sadly there is no law that requires foreign ambassadorial staff to reveal the contents of their diplomatic bags to the police - 19th August Wrong, Emmeline – women just want the Stepford life - These are women who could work if they wanted to but they would rather not; they would rather let their husbands do it - 12th August Watch out, world, here comes the Romneyshambles - Laugh now — pay later - 29th July 2012 Rampant migration a bad thing? Who’d have thought it, Ed - At last, immigration has become a subject it’s okay to talk about without the police getting involved - 22nd July 2012 Call the Milky Bar Kid – this minister is not a full pinta - How much is a pint of milk? That’s one of those questions that are often asked of politicians by mean-spirited journalists ... - 15th July 2012 Psychos are out to get us, all right: they wear hi-vis vests - At long last the police are taking action over people who “smoke” those ludicrous and demeaning electronic cigarette - 8th July 2012 Write out 100 times, parents: I must shut up and let sir teach - Some poor sap of a headmaster is in trouble — for the crime of telling his pupils to pipe down for a few minutes - 1st July 2012 Onward, Christian soldiers – join the EU in oblivion - Why is the Church of England so fervent in its support of the European Union, do you suppose? - 24th June 2012 The hard fact is our teachers find facts too hard to teach - Teachers and educationalists are justifiably outraged by the latest madcap plan from the education secretary, Michael Gove - 17th June 2012 Hypocrites, pseuds and incompetents of the age, I salute you - Who are the people who have made Britain what it is today, the ones who ensured that we became a limp-wristed and decrepit, post-imperial satrapy of incompetence, sanctimony, self-obsession and self-loathing? - 27th May 2012 More tea, Genghis? That’s how the Queen should treat a tyrant - Why weren’t the television cameras allowed into the Queen’s magnificent Jubilee Lunch with Bloodstained Despots? - 20th May 2012 Beat it, Mr Nice Guy – the lardies only listen if you’re nasty - If you siphoned off the fat from the morbidly obese population of Britain, using one of those suction pumps they have in clinics, it would create enough mass to constitute an island the size of Okinawa - 13th May No, Sir Humphrey, you’re not a firm so cough up your tax - Here’s something I’ve been puzzling about all week. Which is the easier thing to do - 6th May

Articles: 2011 Just plead ‘Miaow’ and the law starts pussyfooting - The (now infamous) cat was not the be all and end all of why a Bolivian living in the UK illegally was allowed to stay by a judge - 9th October 2011 The predictable decline of the lesser spotted lesbian - The country is not quite as our liberal Establishment wishes it to be — there are far fewer lesbians and far more Christians than it professes - 2nd October 2011 We don’t need no education, sir, we’ve got human rights - What a disturbing ideology it is which treats the parents of school children as consumers who must always be right - 25th September 2011 Here’s my plan B, McSmug: pay for your own country - Alex Salmond should remember that the government subsidises every person in Scotland by £1,600 more than people south of the border - 18th September 2011 We can’t deal with young, black crime by hiding its name - In one particular sector of society there is a specific problem — and if we accept that there is, then we can do something about it - 11th September 2011 Come on, Vanessa, invite the tinkers into your garden - When the travellers of Dale farm are made to leave they should move to Vanessa Redgrave’s back garden and see how she likes it - 4th September 2011 I say, Jeeves, that Nazi novelist takes the giddy biscuit - PG Wodehouse made a series of broadcasts for the Nazis in 1941, telling Americans the National Socialists were a peaceful bunch - 28th August 2011 Ken’s Adolf jibe was a joke – remember those? - Finally, at least we can have a laugh at something after a summer which has, quite frankly, been non too impressive - 21st August 2011 Shoot the medical messenger – see if that’ll cure you - Medical experts who put forward controversial ideas should investigate their theories and not give in to 'extremist' sufferers - 31st July 2011 Next time you receive a gas bill, strike a match - Energy bills are about to rise by a minimum of twice the level of inflation — perhaps we have found a new group to direct our anger towards - 24th July 2011 They breed, we pay — welcome to the spawning spongers - Why do people such as Joanne Watson believe that one can keep producing child after child after child and get someone else to pay for it? - 17th July 2011 Now we can shout at Scousers, not Indians, in call centres - Somehow I feel less bad about being abusive to an English chap who has failed to sort out my problem than to some bloke in Delhi - 10th July 2011 A cry of rape and men are guilty till proven innocent - We were too hasty to judge DSK — a consequence of our own insecurities over rape convictions (and our enjoyment of enraging the French) - 3rd July 2011 Beware MPs bearing hypocrisy over the Greek crisis - Morally and intellectually a large proportion of the house should be demanding that we write the bailout cheque out this minute - 26th June 2011 The jury are tweeting idiots - Jurors who use Twitter and Facebook during trials aren't a threat to justice — but we should be suspicious about their intellectual ability - 19th June 2011 Grouch, yes, but Philip crushes touchy-feely fools - The Duke of Edinburgh clearly doesn't give a monkey's about who he offends or being polite to the press. But he's a dying breed - 12th June 2011 Fifa’s freeloaders snaffle gold as Olympic scroungers - Instead of repeating old mistakes, we should deny Fifa free access to the 2012 Games and give their tickets to disappointed fans - 5th June 2011 Sorry, Ed, there’s a bit of a hitch with you getting hitched - Ed Milliband, who is not a big believer in the institution of marriage, tied the knot on Friday in a quiet ceremony with Justine - 29th May 2011 Armageddon and smug humanists — both awful - The end of the world is not quite as nigh as many yesterday thought, despite Harold Camping's prediction of the Rapture - 22nd May 2011 Down at the end of Lousy Street in Heartburn hotel - The Lonely Planet's observation of British hotels is right — they are expensive, poor quality and downright depressing - 15th May 2011 Exercise — more deadly than a full English - The answer to mixed messages about what is bad for your health is not to believe any of them. Here's what I would add to the death roster - 8th May 2011 Nabbed over Kung Fu Fighting — a little bit frightening - I never liked Bruce Lee. But is it racist, the song? - 1st May 2011 Trust me, you idiots, every little Tesco riot doesn’t help - People favour supermarkets because the staple goods are cheap. That’s why there are lots of supermarkets, because people like them - 24th April 2011 Britain’s barking now Tories and dogs are back on top - Dogs are Tory pets: they epitomise old-fashioned virtues such as obedience, loyalty, discipline. They are pets enjoyed by nuclear families - 10th April 2011 The halfwits who want airstrikes — but no killing - The liberals now believe things are getting a bit too hot in Libya. Hell, civilians are in danger! Imagine that, in a war - 3rd April 2011 MPs are cashing in again, but our anger’s spent - MPs must be relieved their children will travel at our expense, and that none of us can muster the energy to start the whole debate again - 27th March 2011 Midsomer England doesn’t exist, but many wish it did - Midsomer Murders portrays the sort of country I want to live in: a gentle rural idyll in which people bludgeon each other to death with candlesticks - 20th March 2011 Our number’s up if Sir David can’t talk population - When we have a discussion about man-made climate change, it appears that some things remain permanently off-limits - 13th March 2011 Libya is bad, LSE, but how do you explain Ms Liberty? - Shami Chakrabarti seldom turns down a request to appear on Question Time for Liberty, nor did she turn down a donation from Colonel Gadaffi - 6th March 2011 Tap-tappity-tap ... My tweet just destroyed a regime - Social networks are fuelling revolutions, news of the Downing Street cat is disappearing and a school bans footballs after child is nearly hurt - 27th February 2011 Sorry, Auntie needs a thug, not a diplomat - Chris Patten is by nature diplomatic — and if the BBC is to survive then it needs taking by the neck and shaken rather brusquely every so often - 20th February 2011 You’re wrong, BBC, black northerners like Radio 4 - You have to fear for the BBC. It is struggling at the moment to make a case for its continued existence in a rapidly changing market - 13th February 2011 My kids’ choice — be a gay Nazi or thick and right-on - Given the choice between siring a gay fascist and a well-adjusted illiterate imbecile, I think the former may be more desirable - 6th February 2011 This is, indeed, a Rosa Parks moment - When minority rights are weighed and measured these days it is, incredibly enough, the Christians who tend to come off worst - 23rd January 2011 Let the Tories fume, Bercow-baiting is too much fun - Never has a Speaker been as loathed as John Bercow. It's worth keeping this little gnome there just for the pleasure of watching the rage he induces - 16th January 2011 A few dead crabs? It’s not the end of the world - Millennialist fantasy is a form of narcissism, that we alone possess the information and the morality to either save the world or be saved ourselves - 9th January 2011

Articles: 2010 Trendy left in a tizz over Assange - The British left is in a wonderfully entertaining dilemma over Julian Assange, a crusading liberal hero who is accused of assaulting a woman - 26th December 2010 My daily fix is to stigmatise these smackheads - It is not a good thing to be a junkie. That is why we stigmatise it — not because we are thick or unenlightened or right-wing - 19th December 2010 What a lovely protest — unless you're the Old Bill - There was a sort of carnival atmosphere in Parliament Square. It was like Glastonbury, except — mercifully — without Rolf Harris - 12th December 2010 Quelle surprise — Sarkozy and Silvio are weird - How could you sit in a room with Gordon Brown for more than five minutes and not feel your very soul being sucked out of your skull? - 4th December 2010 Spare us the short fuse, Dave was just being funny - Some of the nation's dwarves are beside themselves with rage at David Cameron for his joke, but this makes it all the more funny - 28th November 2010 On yer bike, Lord Young — you can't say that - Whisper it quietly, recessions often benefit the better-off, no matter how much we buy into this notion that we are all hurting - 21st November 2010 Jon, you deserve a pot shot from the ‘poppy fascists’ - Snow has, once again, refused to wear a poppy while on screen and hit back at those who objected to his rejection of 'poppy fascism' - 7th November 2010 When it comes to cheek, Cherie’s got the lot - The generous assessment is that Cherie is merely a woman doing as women do and getting all strung out on eBay and the chance of a bargain - 31st October 2010 Wayne’s wangle — a masterclass in the pitiful game - When you can be awarded £41.6m for being utterly useless for six months, there is no great incentive to be less useless in the future - 24th October 2010 Quick, get me a veil to wind up the frothing French - The bad Muslim men don’t wear veils. They wear Lycra shell suits and Nikes with fuses sticking out of the top. Have you not noticed this? - 17th October 2010 A shoot-first law that always finds the Met not guilty - At least Saunders had a shotgun with which the police can now defend themselves. All Jean Charles de Menezes had was a rucksack - 10th October 2010 Equality notion lets Stalin into the workplace - Harriet Harman’s berserk Equality Act is an example of how faux-left wishful thinking transforms itself very quickly into Stalinism - 3rd October 2010 This bonfire of the absurdities warms my heart - 'You could lose almost all of these bodies and life would proceed as normal and in many cases might even be enhanced' - 26th September 2010 I would vote for you, Diane, but. . . - For months my wife and I have agonised over which group of middle-class Londoners who have never worked in the real world we wish to run Labour - 19th September 2010 Snoopgate – a revealing tale of Tory stupidity - The story of Jonathan Djanogly and 'snoopgate' reveals a worrying strain of entitlement in the parliamentary candidate selection process - 11th September 2010 They’re not biased at the Beeb – they just know better - The BBC is desperate to be fair according to the rules laid out by its charter, but despite the convictions of its staff it is never truly fair - 5th September 2010 Cabin crew can’t serve you, they’re busy goose-stepping - Since 9/11, cabin crew have become infected with the idea that they defend us against murderous jihadists, like the SAS with better hair gel. They're not - 15th August 2010 Listen up, sisters — it’s men’s work that is never done - Not all women take advantage of employers and refuse to work unsociable hours — but many have been encouraged to do so - 8th August 2010 Bring back stigmas, minister — and not just for fatties - If you stigmatise someone, it lets them know, far better than an Asbo or a CT scan, that how they are living their lives, is somehow ghastly - 1st August 2010 Summer bloodlust – with the usual wrong suspects - Summer is, by tradition, the time we set aside for having a go at our pesky wildlife. And this year it’s the grey squirrels - 25th July 2010 Women can run Westminster – if they can find it - When women do rise to power in politics, they tend to do rather well and demonstrate many of the traits that we consider 'masculine' - 18th July 2010 Let's stone the relativists and see how they like it - Ashtiani will most likely still be executed — but at least she will be hopping up and down with delight that she is not to be stoned to death - 11th July 2010 After this oily deal, expect any old celeb in high office - John Browne's civil service appointment despite evidence pointing to his role in BP's recent catastrophe is highly disappointing - 4th July 2010 Your big mistake, Mr Huhne, was not being gay - David Laws received sympathy after his misdemeanours, but the heterosexual Chris Huhne has suffered nothing but opprobrium - 27th June 2010 Oi, townies - don't treat Mr Fox as a pet - When I lived in London, we had a fox resident in our street. This was Dulwich, so his name was probably Giles or Oliver - 13th June 2010 Supporting England is just not the same without xenophobia - Extreme drunken bigotry and xenophobia, we in this country are extraordinarily good at it, much better than we are at football - 6th June 2010 We could sort this scam out, but we’re too incapacitated - Under Labour, if you wished to be disabled, all you had to do was say that you were and your wish was granted - 30th May 2010 Lost the election? Well, enjoy being an oaf for a while - Now our Labour MPs can eat a full English three times a day then leave the toilet seat up if they want - 16th May 2010 Lembit, Jacqui ditched – what a night - The story of this election was the mass glee with which people turned upon miscreants and rewarded the decent - 9th May 2010 It’s not just the Greeks - It's not looking good for the Greeks, or indeed for the rest of those eurozone countries who might have to bail them out - 2nd May 2010 Face it: you’re stuck with me till 2060 - I was 50 a few weeks back and immediately noticed that my younger wife had been Googling local crematoriums and flower shops - 25th April 2010 Goat pox and killer hornets beat the election any day - While you’ve been glued to the latest election news, Kerry Katona has kissed a Sea Lion and 800 goats have died - 18th April 2010 McLaren was no cultural genius – just a lucky punk - Malcolm’s conformist non-conforming was less potent and more laughable than taking a gig advertising Country Life butter - 11th April 2010 Wrong again, m’lud - If moral rectitude resides with journalist in Simon Singh's chiropractor case, why didn't Mr Justice Eady see that? - 4th April 2010 We can’t forgive the sins of your church - The church still gives the impression that its kiddie-fiddling priests are not half as Satanic as stuff like condoms and socialism - 28th March 2010 Hardly a charitable response from Bob the bludgeoner - A BBC investigation has driven Bob Geldof to the verge of apoplexy. It seems as if the silicon chip inside his head got switched to overload - 14th March 2010 Oh come on, DG, make an honest woman of Auntie - Have you heard BBC Radio 1 recently? An endless fugue of established mid-market banal pop music interspersed with wacky imbecilic chatter - 8th March 2010 We could do with more dimwit MPs - Minister for Immigration Phil Woolas has form. He was outwitted in three seconds flat by Purdey from The New Avengers - 28th February 2010 Go on, give Tiger another good kick - Woods’s 'crimes' were not really crimes at all, though George Orwell might have called them shagcrimes or textcrimes - 21st February 2010 The cyber-fascists slaughtering a decent teacher - Electronic media allows the splenetically dunderheaded to impose their will upon others, in a spectacularly uninformed manner - 14th February 2010 Expediency trumps morality in Terry’s game of charades - You may think Terry a repulsive monkey, but the truth is that he was sacked because he got caught - 7th February 2010 Sixty years on and we’re still in thrall to rebellious youth - It is but a short, skag-addled, hop, skip and a jump from Holden Caulfield, the hero of The Catcher in the Rye, to Pete Doherty - 31st February 2010 Terror warning: raised from daft to perplexing - The government will be happy only when we agree to stay indoors all the time and maybe tiptoe out for milk and fags once a week - 24th January 2010 We must defend the right to be stupid, vile and obnoxious - Shouting nasty things and holding up placards has only recently been seen as something which should be dragged before the courts - 17th January 2010 Mamma Mia! What an ordeal - This musical is successful, charming and brilliant — if you have breasts and a fondness for Swedish pop music - 10th January 2010 We’re emigrating – to the countryside - The UK has dropped to 25th place in a best place to live survey. It is like being told that Peter Andre has a higher IQ than yours - 10th January 2010 From meritocracy to mediocrity in a decade - Everyone must have a voice and that voice must be heard and taken seriously, even if it is a very, very, stupid voice - 3rd January 2010

Articles: 2009 Watch out, world – Dr Doomsayer may be visiting you soon - Sir Liam has revelled in his unofficial role as honorary fifth horseman of the apocalypse - 20th December 2009 Victory for the God squad, defeat for common sense - Quite clearly, the Volestranglers were rude and Tazi was entirely within her rights to have objected to her treatment - 13th December 2009 Give power to the people and expect lunacy - They could have banned cuckoo clocks, mountains and venality and made the world a much happier place. But no, they chose minarets - 6th December 2009 A terribly polite bombshell - The Iraq war inquiry began in a strange atmosphere of high civility, yet already its revelations are damning - 29th November 2009 The joke’s on us as Bling Central loses its sparkle - We are dragged down because our bankers — the ones who dropped us in it last year — bought into this bizarre fiction too - 29th November 2009 That Queen’s speech in full . . . plus a translation - My government will endeavour to ensure not only that England hosts the World Cup in 2018, but actually wins it too - 22nd November 2009 The heartland won’t be fooled again - There is something a little pitiful watching Brown tell the country how worried he is about immigration and how it must not be taboo - 15th November 2009 Dosh is the only thing that sticks to the likes of Teflon Terry - Do you ever wonder how people get jobs, I mean the really big jobs paying more in a year than you’ll earn in two decades - 8th November 2009 MPs blow off truth about drugs - I often wonder to what extent the narcissistic bilge you read in your daily newspapers is a consequence of cocaine rammed up the nostril - 1st November 2009 Halfwit parents should learn respect - My school’s judgment — right or wrong — was good enough for my parents. It's a pity that this no longer appears to be the case - 25th October 2009 Kirstie’s in charge, so fill your boots - One year ago, if you suggested it was okay for bankers to have their bonuses, you would have been shunned by polite society - 18th October 2009 The bankers haven’t learnt that greed is good . . . for nothing - I wonder if you added up the cost of the crimes of every prisoner in this country whether the total would come to anywhere near £27 billion - 4th October 2009 Questions for the skivvy may hang milady out to dry - Very shortly I will be able to reveal to you the whole truth about Baroness Scotland’s employment of an illegal immigrant - 27th September 2009 Immigration farce played out in Milady’s parlour - Government doesn't have the slightest clue how many illegal immigrants are in the UK at the moment or for whom they are working - 20th September 2009 The big scandal here isn’t the sale of Rover, minister - A public inquiry took £16m to tell us what we already knew and buy some time for politicians - 13th September 2009 Oi, you big nancy, I know who the real bigots are - If the Bishop of Winchester pulls out, I’d like to be considered as a replacement on the shortlist for bigot of the year - 6th September 2009 The truth: there are too many of us - The quicker the problem of overpopulation can be uncoupled from racial rhetoric, the more likely we are to address the real issue - 30th August 2009 No politicians and no clue, either - The last thing anybody wants is for their local politician to be a politician - 9th August 2009 Romance is the last thing a healthy marriage needs - Research on the link between divorce and health is so striking that perhaps we should all view our partners in a new light - 2nd August 2009 No wonder we take a sickie - to avoid this hype - Bored with work? Have a couple of weeks off then, and tell them it’s swine flu - 26th July 2009 My thought for the day: God has left the BBC building - The BBC’s conception of religious belief is constrained by political correctness and alien to a good many people in the country - 19th July 2009 Nick Clegg can’t support troops with blanks - News from Afghanistan has been grim recently and getting grimmer - now onto the battlefield strides Field Marshal Clegg - 12th July 2009 It's Labour strategy - enact a law, then campaign against it - It will be a great consolation to Gary McKinnon when he begins his prison sentence in the United States to know that back home, the prime minister’s wife is still shedding tears for him - 5th July 2009 Lighten up, Auntie, and ditch the leaden middle managers - We have a BBC which is suffocated by massively over-remunerated and not terribly bright middle managers - 28th June 2009 Here’s the forecast: the Met Office will get it wrong, again - Thank the Lord the Met Office wasn’t around in Noah’s day with a forecast for the Ararat region - 21st June 2009 Ben’s murder was not racist - Apologies if this offends, but most violent street crime in London is committed by young black men - 14th June 2009 We can't make BBC salaries public - If we knew what Auntie paid, it would kill her. We've had enough of transparency and openness - 7th June 2009 Spendthrifts, dolts, madmen – ooh, I can’t wait to vote - WIll you vote for some wretched Westminster wannabe or one of the weird ones on the fringe at the polling boot this week? - 31st May 2009 Better an MP’s true arrogance than false humility - We are simply jealous of his large home and what right do we have to know of his personal arrangements? - 24th May 2009 Let the BNP speak – and drown in its own poison - Guess what song British National party leader Nick Griffin has for his ring tone. Sweet Home Alabama - 17th May 2009 Still we let you stay, Jacqui - It’s an especial privilege to have you as home secretary, Jacqui. Have another hundred grand for your housing expenses, love - 10th May 2009 Swine flu to kill us? And pigs can fly - What is the right response when you see someone wearing one of those stupid face masks? - 3rd May 2009 Auntie’s hollow lessons in the art of public speaking - Letting Alastair Campbell teach kids is like putting Beelzebub in charge of a Sunday School - 26th April 2009 ’Ello, ’ello, ’ello - PC Porkie Pie is on the case again - For an institution seemingly run by serial incompetents, the Met is extraordinarily creative when it comes to telling lies - 12th April 2009 The mole men of Broughton put the brakes on Google - Probably an entire village of weird, alien-type creatures from a John Wyndham novel - 5th April 2009 Gordon, you may need the left-footers one day - Those of us who consider ourselves true progressives would have said abolish the monarchy, full stop - 29th March 2009 So a gay, blind suicide bomber walks into a bar . . . - At last – legislation is about to be passed which will make homophobic jokes illegal - 22nd March 2009 Nutters have a right to protest - Are you allowed to ask baggage handlers if they are inclined to slip plastic explosives inside people’s luggage? - 15th March 2009 Triumph for human rights and psycho jihadists - Treating people decently is about our only trump card in this wearying battle against the jihadists - 22nd February 2009 Harry’s on course to learn diverse varieties of tosh - The MoD these days has more diversity awareness training courses than it has properly armoured vehicles - 15th February 2009 Taking liberties with reality helps no one, Shami - There is something about the boss of Liberty, that makes me squeal with irritation - 8th February 2009 Who in the cabinet stood up to Blair? - The truth is that nobody stamped their feet too hard for fear of losing their agreeable jobs - 1st February 2009 Alienating one of our few friends – nice work, Miliband - Is he Britain’s worst-ever foreign secretary, or was his incompetence eclipsed by Lord Halifax? - 25th January 2009 Banks can’t expect 'free' cash back - It may be that these are cash machines with a conscience, which have decided unilaterally that the banks have gone too far - 18th January 2009 We can’t get enough of little green men - A wind turbine in Lincolnshire was mysteriously damaged by a collision with an alien spacecraft from the Planet Thrang - 11th January 2009 Down with the anti-fat brigade - Trust me on this; nothing the government does about obesity will be good enough for the National Obesity Forum - 4th January 2009

Articles: 2008 Free speech for a tyrant – how very Channel 4 - Pointing the camera at a random madman and letting him rant is thus "edgy", although it requires nothing in the way of wit or thought - 28th December 2008 If the cap fits, then obviously the local weirdo did it - The police adopted a tried and trusted method when investigating the murder of Rachel Nickell: arrest the local weirdo - 21st December 2008 That’s right, vicar, let’s ban our lying, oppressive carols - The Rev Steve thinks he knows better than everyone else and used his power to make sure his congregation toes the line - 14th December 2008 Head teachers should stick to the school rules too - Parents should be told that rules are absolutely straightforward and are to be abided by without negotiation - 7th December 2008 Thanks, Frank – we’ve never had it so condescending - Both (Frank) Field and (Andrew) Lansley, in their different ways, are in essence complaining that the public has had it too good - 30th November 2008 No BNP, but leftie thugs are welcome - I suspect there is not a single copper anywhere in the country who agrees with every law of the land - 23rd November 2008 Don’t worry – you can keep your nose in the trough, Sir Ian - 16th November 2008 The BBC will never understand until the licence fee stops - 9th November 2008 Give me a damp squib over a wayward rocket - It is a long-standing British tradition on the evening of November 5 to congregate in our local hospitals to keen over injured teenagers - 2nd November 2008 So, George, what first attracted you? - It’s the Shirley Valentine syndrome, falling for a perhaps shady but charismatic foreigner - 26th October 2008 An ordinary Joe could still sink Obama - Right now the deranged and deluded of the United States are busy ringing up plumbers called Joe - 19th October 2008 Everyday Britain scrounges the jackpot - Public institutions seem to have a list of priorities upon which the most deserving people come last - 12th October 2008 Exit the awful Ian Blair, re-enter the awful Mandelson - 5th October 2008 How dare those foreigners die for us - If foreign servicemen want to join the British Army we shouldn't look such a gift horse in the mouth - 28th September 2008 Don’t get creative with facts when it comes to evolution - 14th September 2008 Clarke has nailed Labour’s problem; and its coffin - As Charles Clarke lays into the PM once again he should consider the damage he is doing to the Labour Party as a whole - 7th September 2008 Sir Ian gets mugged by his PC brigade - Some see it as ironic this politically correct copper should be accused of being politically incorrect - 31st August 2008 No teens . . . but the alternative is worse - If teenagers become a thing of the past, who will pay for our pensions when the Poles have gone home? - 24th August 2008 What a surprise; Charles’s ignorance crops up again - Prince Charles has spoken out about the dangers of GM crops but we shouldn't just take his word for it - 17th August 2008 Oh we do love the heroic loser - The funding body for Team GB might be demanding medals but it doesn't mean it's going to get them - 10th August 2008 That’s the spirit, Bishop Bigot. Let’s hate everybody - I have been wondering who Jesus Christ would have liked least, Africans or homosexuals - 3rd August 2008 Hard to know who’s the real villain of this doomed canoe trip - ...on the Darwin disappearance case - 27th July 2008 Trust me, Trevor, Dibley doesn’t really do black people - Television is run by white, middle-class men (in the main) who have bought into the very worst kind of multicultural tokenism - 20th july 2008 Lillian, the marriage registrar who's wedded to bigotry - Civil ceremonies for gays and straights are meant to be the secular alternative to a church do, so let's keep God out of it - 13th July 2008 They're dropping like flies around Boris - and it's his fault - The new mayor of London is in a jam and haemorrhaging senior staff - 6th July 2008 Parents kidding themselves over child protection -Anyone who wants to work in children’s TV must be a bit suspect, not quite right - 29th June 2008 'No' vote was down to meddling Mandy - Peter Mandelson would not know a principle if it accosted him in a nightclub wearing a G-string - 22nd June 2008 If that constitution returns, Gordon, we want a vote - The Lisbon treaty will re-emerge quite soon, camouflaged with a false beard and a moustache - 15th June 2008 Hillary, they just don’t like you - It's not race or age or gender. It's simply that American voters have turned from the Clinton past to new hope in Obama - 8th June 2008 Before you damn us all, Mrs Climbié, I’ve a few questions too - 1st June 2008 archive

The Sunday Times (Sport): Column name: Remit/Info: Sport Section: Role: Pen-name: Email: Website: Commissioning editor: Day published: Regularity: Column format: Average length:

Articles: Football too selfish to learn from Olympic lesson in humility - Never mind this Olympics business — the football season is only a couple of weeks away. I bet you can’t wait - 29th May Media peddling the same old rubbish about the Tour - It's been a long and remarkable journey, this Tour de France, hasn’t it? - 22nd July Robin acts like a right banker - The striker has a cheek to dismiss the business model of the only sane club in the cash-crazed Premier League - 8th July All hail misery, the pundit’s pal - By combining authority and insight with despair, the Beeb has won hands down - 1st July Tale of the tape won’t stop human error deciding results - Which sin of omission was the greater in Ukraine’s ghost goal against England — the missed yard or the missed inch? - 24th June There’s nothing like having the last laugh in a comedy of errors - Well, that was a bit more like it, don’t you think? The sort of football match with which we are all warmly familiar, and thoroughly enjoy - 17th June Honest Barton’s uglier side is just what Arsenal need - There's one thing I want to make absolutely clear, and about which I’m in agreement with Gary and Alan and Alan: the disgraceful behaviour of Joey Barton - 20th May The £90m crunch - West Ham must forget fineries when they tackle Blackpool’s journeymen next weekend in the most lucrative match of the season - 13th May Hail Chelsea and the world’s most expensive Subbuteo - Premier League crowds have been falling this season. This is despite the fact that there has been a greater than usual number of games that are supposedly crucia - 6th May

The Spectator: Column name: Remit/Info: Politics, media, culture, current affairs Section: The Magazine / Features Role: Commentator Pen-name: Email: Website: Spectator.co.uk Commissioning editor: Day published: Wednesday Regularity: Weekly Column format: Average length:

Articles: Journalists will be the next target of public anger, and rightly so - Rod Liddle takes issue with his friend and former colleague, Andrew Gilligan, over his work for PressTV, the propaganda channel run by the Iranian government. How can such work be compatible with the journalistic ethos for which Gilligan has previously been commended? - 8th July 2009 Labour’s U-turn on social housing for non-immigrants is welcome but too late - Rod Liddle says that metropolitan liberal ideology is too deeply ingrained in local councils, social services and the judiciary to be overturned by one panic measure driven by Labour’s sudden fear of the BNP - 1st July 2009 Sarkozy’s burqa ban panders to racism, not feminism - Rod Liddle says that the French President may be right about Islam’s ideological content but that his proposal is shockingly illiberal and wrong-headed - 24th June 2009 I have come up with a way of disrupting all these mad employment tribunals - Rod Liddle says the case of Fata Lemes — a Muslim woman who claimed her dignity had been ‘violated’ by the dress she had to wear in a cocktail bar — is sadly typical of a crazy institutional structure that kowtows to every conceivable outraged sensibility - 17th June 2009 If anything, this result understates the support for the BNP - Rod Liddle says that the far right party won two seats against the odds. Nick Griffin and Andrew Brons are simply colonising terrain vacated by the Westminster elite - 10th June 2009 If you want to see corruption, look at the party leaders’ response to the scandal - Rod Liddle says that, for all the claims made by Brown and Cameron to be taking deeply moral action, the pattern of retribution shows that they are saving their mates and throwing their enemies to the wolves - 3rd June 2009 There is something comforting about North Korea’s nuclear weapons - Rod Liddle takes issue with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and otherdoom-mongers: Kim Jong-il’s nukes are quaintly amateurish - 27th May 2009 Even if the system’s to blame, no one forced MPs to milk it - Rod Liddle says that Sarah Teather, the righteous young Lib Dem MP who refused to claim for a second home, proves that it wasn’t mandatory for MPs to fleece us - 20th May 2009 Why won’t my employer pay me to look after my castle while I’m in London? - Rod Liddle wants to know why the taxpayer has to pay for Douglas Hogg’s moat and Phil Woolas’s groceries, but nobody will subsidise his own extravagant needs — and is offended by MPs’ attempts to posture as the victims of an impersonal ‘system’ - 13th May 2009 ‘Solution Focused Therapy’ is only the worst of the delusions in the Baby P case - Rod Liddle says that the insane therapeutic methods used by Haringey Social Services typify the ideological determination of these ‘experts’ to accentuate the ‘positive’ and ignore social reality - 6th May 2009 It is child-rearing, not sexism, that explains the pay gap between men and women - Rod Liddle says that Harriet Harman’s notion of ‘structural pay discrimination’ is nonsense. It is women’s decision to have children that disrupts wage equality - 29th April 2009 J.G. Ballard was a man of the Right — not that the Right really wanted him - Rod Liddle says that the great writer, who died this week, always espoused the pessimism about the human condition that is the mark of a true conservative. He even wanted American missiles stationed in his garden - 22nd April 2009 Stop being sanctimonious about the McBride emails. Make your own minds up - Rod Liddle says that the internet is an anarchic expression of democracy, and should be treated as such. The same applies to emails sent between friends. Read them and use your common sense - 15th April 2009 The C of E has forgotten its purpose. Why, exactly, does it exist? - Rod Liddle offers an Easter message to the leaders of the Church, who have ditched its traditions and reduced it to a sort of superannuated ad-hoc branch of social services. It has lost all sense of mission and direction. Whatever happened to muscular Christianity? - 7th April 2009 The real scandal is that we always, always end up paying - The Jacqui Smith case and the grotesque sight of her husband apologising for watching porn films at the taxpayer’s expense are just the latest symptoms of a well-advanced political disease, says Rod Liddle. They take the voters for a bunch of mugs - 1st April 2009 The response to Jade’s death reminded me how puzzled I was by Diana mania - What do those who mourn Jade Goody think they are mourning, asks Rod Liddle. Do they not have their own dead to bury, to grieve over, to remember? - 25th March 2009 The smoking ban was always going to be the thin end of the wedge - Rod Liddle is appalled by Sir Liam Donaldson’s deployment of statistics in the hope of making it harder to have a drink. A surrealist would struggle to keep up with such campaigns against our human pleasures - 18th March 2009 Julie and Jonathan Myerson personify the worst generation in history - This family’s very public angst is all about making cash, says Rod Liddle. And the parents were not showing ‘tough love’ when they kicked out their son, but washing their hands of a problem - 11th March 2009 Thirteen, Alfie? I’d almost given up on sex by the age of 13 - Rod Liddle recalls his own childhood fumblings and says that the case of Alfie Patten proves nothing much has changed. If Britain is ‘broken’, it always was - 25th February 2009 If we are going to ban nasty foreigners, can we at least be consistent about it? - Rod Liddle parodies the nonsense that is the government’s approach to foreign visitors with unpleasant messages. It makes no sense to ban a critic of Islam but let in every homophobe with a passport - 18th February 2009 Jade Goody reminds us how arbitrary is success and how close to death we are - The reality TV überchav remained in the public eye because of her unerring ability to court catastrophe, says Rod Liddle — and the television-friendly speed at which her grotesque rise and demise have taken place - 11th February 2009 Why would the English working class consider voting Labour again? - Rod Liddle, a former glue factory worker, says that wildcat strikes have tapped a deep grievance: the anger of the English working class that it has been forgotten. These workers have been betrayed by the very party that was set up to protect and represent them - 4th February 2009 The BBC was absolutely right about the unbalanced Gaza charity ad - The Corporation has performed admirably during the conflict, says Rod Liddle. It is to Mark Thompson’s credit that he did not cave in to pressure on all sides to air the charity appeal - 28th January 2009 The BBC can’t help loving Obama, just as it can’t help encouraging recession - Rod Liddle says that television news is intrinsically biased: it transforms what it reports. In the case of the economy, ministers are right to counteract this with a dose of optimism - 21st January 2009 If fat people can’t adopt, who’s to say that drinkers or blacks won’t be next? - Rod Liddle says that the discrimination against overweight applicants wishing to adopt is only the latest vindictive witch hunt by bureaucrats and social workers against a minority. It is no more sensible than targeting an ethnic group or a social class - 14th January 2009 Onward Christian Zionists - Rod Liddle on the crazed, quasi-fascist evangelicals in Britain and America who believe war in Gaza heralds the Second Coming of Christ - 7th January 2009 Come with me to Santa’s grotto to discover the state we’re in - Rod Liddle offers a festive tour of the world at Christmas 2008: irrational fear, ignorance, stupidity, vexatious litigation, a foolish longing to abolish ‘risk’, and Christmas parties that, we are warned, have ‘absolutely nothing to do with Jesus’ - 15th December 2008 The law applies to Damian Green, too - Rod Liddle is reluctant to join the journalistic herd in its unqualified outrage at the Tory MP’s arrest. But it is certainly time to put the police under the microscope - 3rd December 2008 Incompetence is fine: but being offensive is sure to get you sacked - Rod Liddle says that something has gone wrong when 15 South Lanarkshire social workers are sacked over a dodgy Gary Glitter joke while none of their counterparts in Haringey has even been reprimanded over the ‘Baby P’ case - 26th November 2008 I loved Oliver Stone’s Bush film — and I know why the critics hated it - The movie W. did not provide the crude anti-Bush agitprop that the reviewers craved, says Rod Liddle. This was precisely its strength: we need to get inside the minds even of those we most deplore - 19th November 2008 Is Barack Obama really black? Actually, I’m not so sure - Rod Liddle, who wanted the Democrat to win, says the racial dimension to this presidential election was never straightforward, and probably favoured Obama rather than McCain - 5th November 2008 The real lesson is: the public don’t like Jonathan Ross or Russell Brand - the row over their radio ‘prank’ has exposed the fact that these two smug, overpaid performers aren’t really that popular. There are no fans to defend them - 29th October 2008 What Harman calls a ‘distraction’, the rest of us call debate - the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill, its hopeless fudge of secular and religious positions, and the cynical suppression of all attempts to raise the issue of abortion - 22nd October 2008 Ashley Cole deserved to be booed for all that he personifies - the magnificently horrid England defender exemplifies the greed, lack of respect for the fans and whining self-regard that is ruining football - 15th October 2008 Strictly Come Dancing is not the BBC’s core broadcasting - 8th October 2008 Why has the word ‘grandmother’ been banned by the Guardian? - the extraordinary list of mostly harmless words and phrases that are now considered inappropriate by one of our leading national newspapers - 1st October 2008 If Miliband Becomes PM, I’ll Join The Right-Wing Coup To Topple Him - 24th September 2008 Labour’s Behaviour Reminds Me Of The Blind Football At The Paralympics - The party’s MPs are fatally conflicted over Gordon Brown’s leadership. Their craven conduct reflects the awkward fact that they overwhelminglychose him in the first place - 17th September 2008 Have We Ever Faced An Enemy More Stupid Than Muslim Terrorists? - These narcissistic adolescent halfwits should not fill us with fear. The aircraft plot trial showed yet again that those who wish to murder us with fizzy pop and peroxide are a bunch of cowards - 10th September 2008 What possessed McCain to take a punt on Palin? - the appointment of an inexperienced, gun-toting formerbeauty queen as his running mate may well be John McCain’s undoing - 3rd September 2008 Our Obsession With Paedophilia Is More Dangerous Than Gary Glitter’s Return - 27th August 2008 After Jade’s Cancer, What Next? ‘I’m A Tumour, Get Me Out Of Here’? - the stunningly tasteless announcement of Jade Goody’s cervical cancer on Indian Big Brother marks a new low. But that won’t stop TV bosses saying it is a public service - 20th August 2008 For A Footballer To Sue For ‘Negligence’ Is Like A Climber Suing A Mountain - The case of Ben Collett, the footballer awarded £4.5 million for a tackle that ended his career, bodes ill for the game - 13th August 2008 All These Green Taxes And Rules Are Just Witless Nods To Fashion - 6th August 2008 All local government should be abolished - It doesn’t matter who’s in charge, says Rod Liddle. Once elected, a localcouncil automatically becomes self-important and incompetent - 23rd July 2008 If the liberal press is to believed, nobody has ever been stabbed - ever - Rod Liddle imagines the hoodie at home, allegedly innocent of any wicked intent, arming himself with a Stanley knife only because of the supposed alarmism of the right-wing media - 16th July 2008 Shouting abuse at fast people is not just fun. It's socially useful - Antisocial behaviour needs to be stigmatised, not treated as an illness to be cured - 9th July 2008 How to get stabbed: you, too, can be knifed in a public place - ...it helps to be aged between 14 and 30, white and male. Being drunk and argumentative speeds things along. And no public policy seems to dissuade those who do the stabbing - 2nd July 2008 archive

News & updates: Liddle the 'liberal fundamentalist' with a scandalous cuttings file - The columnist: Rod Liddle defines himself as a "liberal fundamentalist" and he is never far from controversy, Ian Burrell, The Independent, 18th November 2011 Latest news and comment on Rod Liddle from guardian.co.uk

References:

Links: Wikipedia biog.