Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
From our UK edition
The Met Office is apparently holding a ‘crisis meeting’ today to discuss why Britain’s weather refuses to behave itself these days. No sooner had the camp, pirouetting, forecasters told us that we were in for weeks and weeks of gale force winds and torrential rain, stretching into July, better wear your wellies etc, than the
From our UK edition
A scientific study has revealed that the faces of Lego characters are no longer so mindlessly happy as they once were. This is an important thing to know. ‘Put the cancer cure stuff on hold for a while, will you – I’m deeply interested in the facial expressions of plastic toys.’ Anyway, once upon a
From our UK edition
There’s an Islamic school in Birmingham which is very highly regarded. It’s called Darul Uloom — the same name as the school in Chislehurst which was recently the subject of an arson attack. In fact, that’s how I stumbled across it. Anyway, Darul Uloom in Birmingham is a good school not only academically, but also for
From our UK edition
Well done to the BBC Today programme’s Sarah Montague for not screaming abuse at Tommy Robinson, the English Defence League leader, when she interviewed him this morning. It seems that many wanted her simply to shriek abuse at the man – and now she is being criticised for having been too lax. Being aggressive with
From our UK edition
Can I just share with you my satisfaction that the CIA has access to my emails and all the social media sites I visit from time to time? This has been a big story in the liberal press: US fascist spooks can access loads of details about you through the online stuff you’ve been doing.
From our UK edition
It must be boring for you too, returning to the same complaint, over and over again. Report on the BBC’s 10 O’Clock News about the trouble in Turkey. Not a single mention, in the three minutes, of the words Islam, or Muslim, or Islamification. You had to infer everything. Without prior knowledge of what was
From our UK edition
It’s sleaze time again in Westminster. A few good stings by the broadcasters and the press and we see his lordship ‘Nuclear’ Jack Cunningham coining it by asking for £12,000 per month to make use of his extensive contacts and also his ability to get a table on the terrace of the Lords. £12,000 a
From our UK edition
Is it now time for William Hague to send money, and possibly arms, to the rebels now participating in what we might call a Turkish Spring? There have been violent demonstrations, clashes with police, petrol bombs thrown and the like. The protestors are largely from Turkey’s most secular cities and regions and include gay rights
From our UK edition
So, who is it then? Please speculate in the privacy of your own homes rather than within the comments section below, as our lawyers would – like the rest of us – prefer a quiet Sunday. From the Mail on Sunday we know that it is two ‘middle-aged’ people – an odd description as, by
From our UK edition
Good luck to all the animal rights activists setting off this weekend to harass the members of the Game and Wildlife “Conservancy” Trust shooting blameless badgers. The cull, which could stretch to 100,000 of the poor bloody animals, makes no more sense than our determination to get involved in Syria’s civil war. The government department
From our UK edition
A week or so after the murder of a British soldier by two psychopathic savages in Woolwich, the Foreign Secretary William Hague is back pleading with our European partners to help the murderers’ brothers fighting the jihad in Syria. I use the term ‘brothers’ a little loosely, sure; it is the term they would use.
From our UK edition
I was slightly puzzled by the early media reports of the appalling murder in Woolwich and particularly the wrangling over whether or not this could be called ‘a terrorist attack’. Does it make much difference? Two savages hacked a man to death while shouting Allahu Akbar; that’s really all you need to know, isn’t it?
From our UK edition
I’d just like to point out, having been a journalist for many years and having met these people, and also having been a member of the Labour Party for more than thirty years, that the constituency activists of every party are, in the main, swivel-eyed loons. They are endlessly busy, busy, busy, little monkeys, obsessive
From our UK edition
Only in The Guardian could Britain’s humorous disdain for the Eurovision Song Contest be linked to the rise of UKIP and the decline of the British Empire: ‘I think Eurovision-bashing reflects a crisis of collective national identity in the UK; it’s a way of expressing feelings of unprocessed anger, frustration, and loss about the UK’s
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Having given the matter careful consideration, I have decided that I do not agree with councillor Colin Brewer’s suggestion that disabled children should be ‘put down’ after birth, perhaps in the manner of a farmer smashing a deformed newly born lamb against a wall, as he helpfully put it. ‘You can’t have lambs wandering around
From our UK edition
The Tia Sharp case is yet another harrowing untermensch saga. The man accused of the little girl’s murder, Stuart Hazell, has now changed his plea to guilty. Of course, it is impossible not to feel anguish for Tia’s parents. Just as it is impossible to comprehend their agony. Whatever the ins and outs, and whatever
From our UK edition
Very good piece from Dan Hannan in yesterday’s The Daily Telegraph. The gist of it being that politicians admit to Eurosceptical tendencies only once they have left office (and therefore, by extension, when it is too late to do anything about it.) This will have been prompted by both Nigel Lawson and Michael Portillo’s recent
From our UK edition
My copy of the Times on Tuesday this week kindly provided me with a list of things to do in order that I might ‘live life to the full’. I am not at all sure that I wish to live life to the full, having met many people for whom this is their guiding philosophy
From our UK edition
Having a baby and stuck for a choice of name? Let the eminently sensible and well-adjusted people of New Zealand help you out. Their government has just released a list of names parents wished to call their kids but were banned from doing so by an overbearing and meddling state. Luckily they’re still legal over
From our UK edition
Great stuff from David Starkey on BBC Question Time last night, hammering away at Harriet Harman, David Dimbleby, Victoria Coren and Shirley Williams for having attained their current positions in society with considerable assistance from their famous and influential (and of course loaded) parents. Yes, precisely; it is pretty much the same every week. Starkey
