No matter how much they disagreed with Rod Liddle, no one who knew him can find a bad word to say about him. How many of us will have a death like that? He used to say that Julie Burchill had never been wrong about anything except that her criticism of Madonna was not harsh enough. He applied for a job on the NME, but she pipped him at the post, and the rest is history. He could have married Tony Parsons. Now stop telling people that Rod had converted to Islam on his deathbed, or no one will believe you when Douglas Murray really did.
The Question Time clip that has been doing the rounds today is from 27 September 2018 in Bishop Auckland, when Rod, Ian Lavery and Jacob Rees-Mogg were all on the panel. That evening, I saw Sir Ian McKellen give his Lear, and then I watched that. To my dying day, I shall never be sure when the first ended and the second began.
Early in 2010, and yes it really was that long ago, we in what was then the economically left-wing and socially conservative underground were holding out hope that Rod was going to be made Editor of The Independent. No doubt like a number of people, I received a lovely message from him when the campaign against him succeeded. More than ever after today, we remain talked about rather than heard from.
And after today, whither the SDP? There are those who are in the SDP because of Rod, and there are those who have always said that they would never join it while he was in it. Pointedly, it is contesting the Clacton by-election against the floundering Nigel Farage despite the fact that it and Reform UK had stood aside for each other in six constituencies at the last General Election while fielding around twice that number of joint candidates. All this, and Restore Britain, too? Maybe it’s you, Nigel. Maybe it’s you.
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