Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.

Monday

Rod Liddle

The Tories Vs Scotland

Interesting comments from Ruth Davidson, the chairthing of the Scottish Conservative Party, about her fellow countrymen. Only twelve per cent of Scots, she says, contribute more to the exchequer than they take out in the form of benefits. “The rest lie around on filthy sofas in subsidised homes, watching daytime television while farting, mainlining heroin and stuffing their sad grey faces with pies full of regurgitated sheep gizzards and Windolene.” Actually, I paraphrase a bit there. She didn’t say all that stuff. She just said almost nine out of ten Scots take more in benefits than they generate in wealth. This is, she says, shocking, and the Scots have too great a sense of entitlement.

Sunday

Rod Liddle

Are you a ‘suspicious striver’?

I have always wanted to be part of that tranche of voters identified by pollsters as being crucial in general elections. But it never happens. Every few years arseholes in fashionable spectacles coin some new description of a bunch of people who they believe hold the keys to 10 Downing Street - and every time I feel myself excluded. An entirely absent vagina and an inability to drive a car disqualified me from being either a Worcester Woman or a Mondeo Man. Also, I have an irrational dislike of Worcestershire, and especially Malvern. Now we are being told that the next general election will be decided by a group of people who comprise the hitherto unheard of subset “suspicious strivers”. I am not one of these, either.

Rod Liddle

We need a free press more than ever

I’m a bit late with this, as the book has been out a few days or so. But it’s worth getting hold of Mick Hume’s book about newspapers: There is No Such Thing As A Free Press. It’s very good, a timely defence of freedom of the press at the time of Leveson, but rightly critical too of our manifest failings; our narcissism and laziness and sense of self importance. Here’s Hume at the end of the book in admonishing mode: ‘Journalism should be more humble – and take itself more seriously. We need journalism to recognise that its primary responsibility is to report and reflect the world, not to run it or rescue it. Yet at the same time journalism should take itself more seriously and recognise just how important it is.

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Re-nationalise the railways

The West Coast rail franchise balls up is a remarkable kettle of fish, isn’t it? I remember when the successful tender was announced by the government being surprised at the ferocity of old beardy’s rage, and also astonished at the figures he was quoting. Can this be right, I wondered to myself at the time? The projections made by the First group, and which initially won them the contract, seemed outlandishly optimistic. But then, looking at the detail of the failed Virgin bid, that seemed only slightly less outlandishly optimistic. It seems that all concerned put in bids which were a palpable nonsense, leaving the government civil servants with the simple task of choosing the one which promised the most; the reality behind the figures didn’t really matter.

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Geopolitics in the 21st Century

Some dog-munching old thug from Pyongyang has been addressing the United Nations, warning that his country is the ‘world’s hotspot’ and a spark could trigger a thermonuclear war. It’s quite possible I’m wrong about this, as I am wrong about a lot of things, but North Korea worries me far less than one supposes it should. Partly because it is so far away. And partly because the North Koreans are utterly useless and their fatuous ideology is shared by nobody else in the world (apart from one or two academics in British universities). Even a country as thoroughly grim as China finds Pyongyang ludicrous and insupportable; when push comes to shove, the country is utterly alone. And none of its missiles seem to work. So much for juche, then.

Rod Liddle

Why didn’t the full Savile story emerge sooner?

Every so often a story appears in the newspapers which, while it might seem on the surface sensational and arresting, actually leaves you feeling somewhat less than astonished, all things considered. There have been at least two of these stories recently. The first, in the Daily Telegraph, alleged that Scotland Yard was investigating suspiciously large sums of cash apparently paid into the bank account of the Labour MP for Leicester East, Keith Vaz. I bet that very few people who have ever heard the words ‘Keith’ and ‘Vaz’ used in a conjoined sense will have smacked their foreheads upon reading this story and muttered to themselves: ‘Gaw, Keith Vaz, hey — who’d have believed it?

Monday

Rod Liddle

Iraq and the BBC revisited

Just finished reading a book by Kevin Marsh, the editor of the Today programme at the time of the whole Gilligan-Campbell-Kelly business which saw the director general of the BBC kicked out of the corporation. It hasn’t aroused very much interest, largely because it contains no new information which would either exonerate the programme or the government. And because stylistically it is not an untrammelled pleasure. I think Stephen Robinson, in the Sunday Times, got it about right: “It takes a particular type of journalistic incompetence to cede the moral high ground on the Iraq war to Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair, but this book…….

Rod Liddle

Two different Laws

Among the vast number of British people who are somewhat surprised to see the disgraced MP David Laws back in government is David’s own father, Tony Laws. Laws jnr was kicked out, if you remember, for having pocketed a very large amount of money in expenses as a consequence of lying through his teeth. David explained that the reason he had not been more honest is that he was a deeply private person in a very real sense and did not wish to reveal that he was in a gay relationship: the money he thus acquired was simply an unfortunate by-product of this perfectly reasonable wish not to tell people stuff. I may try this one out on the Inland Revenue next April.

Friday

Rod Liddle

Nigel Farage should sit tight

Should UKIP do some sort of electoral deal with the Conservative Party? This is being talked about at the moment: Cameron pledges himself to a referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU, Nigel Farage agrees not to field candidates against a bunch of Tory MPs somehow characterised as Eurosceptic. I can see how this would appeal to the Prime Minister, languishing fifteen points behind Labour in the opinion polls. But what good will it do Farage? UKIP has spent a considerable amount of time and energy attempting to convince people that it is not a single issue party, but rather a sort of revamped Monday Club led by nicer people. Strike such a deal and that work will be undone immediately.

Thursday

Rod Liddle

A teenage girl, a maths teacher and a righteous tabloid fury

I seriously contemplated being a teacher once upon a time, when I was lot younger. It seemed to me an agreeable doss, and one didn’t have to be too bright or too ambitious, or possess any great quantity of knowledge. I sometimes wondered what sort of teacher I’d prefer to be; one of those ingratiating young men who plays meaningful pop songs on his guitar to the class and affects an air of faux rebelliousness, the kind of teacher whom as schoolchildren we all despised, or the other kind — sarcastic, stentorian and occasionally brutal, the kind we all feared. It was one or the other; there is no middle way. I never found out because the one thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids.

Rod Liddle

A hero for our time?

They were in the Greek Orthodox cathedral in London on Valentine’s Day 1989 for Bruce Chatwin’s memorial service — all of London’s literary elite, Martin Amis, Salman Rushdie, Antonia Fraser and the rest. Outside the cathedral the journalists and snappers had gathered, but they were not there for Chatwin. Halfway through the service Rushdie felt a tap on his arm. From the pew behind, the American novelist Paul Theroux whispered: ‘I suppose we’ll be here for you next week, Salman.

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Joseph Anton, a brilliant and important book

I’m halfway through Joseph Anton, Salman Rushdie’s memoir of what it was like to be given a death sentence by medieval religious savages. I’m reviewing the book for next week’s magazine. We were, as a country, rather less than unequivocal in our determination to protect Rushdie for his right to exercising free speech; plenty of people who should have known better gave succour to his persecutors. I don’t know if the oleaginous Labour MP Keith Vaz falls into that category, mind; his support for the howling mob was, I suppose, predictable. It’s a brilliant and important book. And there is a surprising amount of humour in it. So I’ll leave you with a puzzle.

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

It’s hardly surprising that most politicians are mentally ill

I suppose it is largely our fault that most politicians are mentally ill. We eviscerate them daily and one assumes that some of the poison eventually seeps through and begins to affect their central nervous systems. Being held up to ridicule for their incompetences, being dependent for their livelihoods upon the whims of idiots, and being forced to speak in a language from which all real meaning has been excised obviously takes its toll. I have been reading the diaries of that strange former minister Edwina Currie — a woman with whom I share virtually no political conviction but who I have nonetheless always rather liked as a person. She is definitely mad.

Tuesday

Rod Liddle

The annihilation of the Lib Dems

I see that Labour is now fifteen points ahead in the latest opinion poll, a Populus poll for the Times. While the Tories have dropped four points on the previous month, it still seems to me that the bulk of that Labour lead is rightly disaffected Liberal Democrats: they are down to ten per cent. There was a meticulous Peter Kellner piece in Prospect recently which laid out a desperate scenario for the Lib Dems. It certainly looks as if they will be down to the sorts of numbers of MPs they had when Jo Grimond was their leader, and confined to far flung places where they may well still believe that Asquith is the leader. Good, frankly. It certainly wouldn’t surprise me if on share of the vote they were eclipsed next time by UKIP.

Saturday

Rod Liddle

Film protests in Middle East

It’s about time we revamped the rather stale format of the BBC film review show, the one that has that Nina Simone signature tune and was presented by Barry Norman and more latterly Jonathan Ross. I don’t even know if the programme is still extant. Anyway, my idea is for a new review show which would be set in a branch of the KFC franchise and presented by fundamentalist Muslims. Any film they didn’t like they’d burn down the restaurant and decapitate the manager, or manageress. Are these people running riot in Khartoum, Cairo and Tripoli just very stupid, or mentally ill? Or both?

Thursday

Rod Liddle

The Green Party is outdoing itself with its own tolerance

My father once told me that tolerance was a great and precious British virtue, and that we shouldn’t waste it on homosexuals. Even at the time this struck me as a somewhat illiberal and unkind point of view to which I privately objected. It was easier though, back then, to hold such ‘homophobic’ beliefs because there were only eight or nine homosexuals in the entire country, so far as we were aware, and they all seemed slightly ashamed of their predilection, except for maybe Quentin Crisp and Joe Orton.

Monday

Rod Liddle

Mars’s hypocrisy

Here’s an idea for a series which could run and run: hypocritical corporate toss. The chocolate and pet food manufacturer Mars has demanded that a chippy in Stonehaven must put up a disclaimer in its shop advising that Mars does not approve of the restaurant’s delicacy, deep fried Mars bars. If I were the owner of the chip shop I would tell them to get stuffed, but this little bit of bullying and sanctimony is not the point of my story. It was the statement from some horrible corporate arse in Mars, justifying the demand. Deep fried Mars bars 'goes against our company’s policy of encouraging healthy lifestyles.' Fabulous. They make some of the most fattening food on God’s earth.

Thursday

Rod Liddle

Why can’t I go to parties like Naomi Wolf’s book launch? | 6 September 2012

I got an invitation the other day to attend the launch of some incendiary tract about Europe published by a think-tank. I get quite a few of these, especially stuff from what was once the Tory far right (and by ‘far’ I mean ‘far’ as in sort of Alpha Centauri, i.e. more easily measurable in light years than inches). I have nothing which constitutes a ‘life’, as such, so I go to one or two of these bashes every year — largely out of gratitude that anyone would ever invite me to anything.

Rod Liddle

Why can’t I go to parties like Naomi Wolf’s book launch?

I got an invitation the other day to attend the launch of some incendiary tract about Europe published by a think-tank. I get quite a few of these, especially stuff from what was once the Tory far right (and by ‘far’ I mean ‘far’ as in sort of Alpha Centauri, i.e. more easily measurable in light years than inches). I have nothing which constitutes a ‘life’, as such, so I go to one or two of these bashes every year — largely out of gratitude that anyone would ever invite me to anything.

Wednesday

Rod Liddle

Three northern breakfasts

I’ve been in Scarborough, working on a story. Stayed in a perfectly nice hotel and this morning came down for my breakfast. I was greeted at the entrance to the dining room by a waitress who addressed me thus: “Good morning sir. Have you had breakfast before?” I said well, yes, I’m 52, you know. I’ve had loads of them. This response seemed to satisfy her and nothing more was said on the matter. If I’d said no, I’ve never had breakfast in my life, would she have explained to me what breakfast was, do you suppose? Told me about Kellogs and stuff? Very odd. A few months ago I was in South Shields working on a story, and in another perfectly fine hotel.