One of the joys of being director of digital at The Spectator, back in 2015, was seeing the magazine proofs before they went to print. Rod Liddle’s column was the first thing I looked for, always the one I was most eager to read. He made me laugh every single time, something very few columnists are able to do. I was annoyed I liked those columns, because I didn’t want to like Rod Liddle. All I knew of his personal life was through the scandal that followed him leaving his wife during the so-called ‘Sextator’ years. I took a dim view of that.
Although we both worked for The Spectator, I didn’t actually meet Rod for a long time because, woke snowflake that he was, he only ever worked from home.
The first time we met was at a Spectator summer party, years later. Despite the very spiky conversation, we got on like a house on fire. It started off with an argument. I told him I was a Conservative. He sniffed at me in disgust and told me he was a member of the SDP.
We got on like a house on fire – even if he did sniff at me in disgust when I told him I was a Conservative
Somewhere during the conversation, he looked me up and down and said: ‘I suppose you think I’m some racist old bigot, don’t you?’ I laughed, we drank, others joined in.
We shared an irreverent sense of humour. That sense of humour has got me into trouble for many years, right from my school days and long before politics – perhaps even now. So I understood Rod Liddle and he understood me.
I also enjoy poking fun at the po-faced moralisers who want to lecture everybody while leading hypocritical lives themselves.
Rod was outrageous, dark, rude and extremely funny. He was deliberately provocative, but beneath the provocation there was always a serious argument, usually one that more respectable writers had recognised, and even agreed with, but were too frightened to make. He made original points and made them impossible to ignore.
I can understand why he did not get on at the BBC. Rod remained the same, while the BBC changed, becoming more cautious and less comfortable with his kind of irreverence.
Rod understood that the mob was a danger, not something to kowtow to. We both shared an aversion to cancel culture, organised and performative outrage. He knew that the moment a writer begins tailoring his thoughts to please online critics, the critics have won.
I know the moment a politician starts announcing policy simply to be liked, or because it’s what the polls say, they’ve lost the argument. We have to do what we believe in, follow our principles, do what we know is right, and not just what the polls demand. That is why I will sometimes take positions with which people disagree, but at least they know where I stand.
Rod’s response to the online mob is one which, even in death, we must remember. The usual ghouls, the types who celebrated the deaths of Margaret Thatcher and Ann Widdecombe, have come out again to tell us what a terrible person Rod was. And, of course, he was a deeply flawed man. But he mattered. He mattered because he made people think, laugh, get angry and argue. The minnows attacking him after his death merely demonstrate his significance. They must be ignored as we focus on the passing of one of the greats.
While Rod and I found common ground on common sense, culture and the absurdities of modern public life, we did, however, fundamentally disagree on economics. I am a Thatcherite. He could not abide Thatcherism. We both agreed that Britain was getting poorer due to foolishness, losing great industry, our heritage and our strength.
Our prescriptions for how to deal with that were, of course, different. The truth is Rod cared less about whether an argument was left-wing or right-wing. He was more interested in whether it was true or false, clever or stupid.
When I heard about his passing, I went back to the Spectator website I once used to run to read the last article he’d written. I was overwhelmed by emotion as I discovered it was the one about me.
Back in June, I thanked him for writing such a flattering article. He replied: ‘It was a fine piece of almost Gonzo political journalism. Hunter S. Thompson lives!’
When Rod Liddle gave you a compliment, you took it, no questions asked. His compliments were rare indeed.
Rod praised wit, intellectual seriousness and a willingness to offend one’s own side. ‘Kemi gives me hope’ was the headline of the article. I think what gave him hope was the return of argument, personality and giving it a bit of welly. His article was ultimately a defence of intelligence in public life and a protest against its slow suffocation.
I now have a duty to make sure that hope is justified and indeed honoured. The Spectator also has a duty too. A lot of people are going to miss his words from these pages. His family will miss him even more and my heart goes out to them. Rod died of the same disease that took my father, slowly and then all at once. I know the pain they are feeling.
His absence will be felt greatly. Much more than a missing column, Rod’s passing leaves an empty space in the lives of all of us who need that common sense and that fearlessness of those who aren’t afraid to say what they think.
The Spectator now has a huge job to do. Someone has to find a way of filling the space his death has left in these pages. That would be the greatest tribute we can give to Rod Liddle, provocateur and writer extraordinaire.
Rest in peace, my friend. I will miss you.
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