There was a sizeable leftie club occupying the same ‘contrarian’ territory — Brendan O’Neill, Clare Fox et al — though none of them as spitefully funny writers as RL. Before I (properly) woke up in 2020, I was an avid fan despite my underlying distaste of their socialist genes. When I first met you at your Live Podcast in 2018 in Euston I had earlier attended the packed-to-the-rafters O’Neill/Liddle ‘show’. The three of you were the stars of the moment mainly because of the anti-lib and pro-Brexit take. But, to a man and a woman they all exposed their true colours come the plandemic. Rod Liddle was the main reason I initially subscribed to the Spectator but I simply stopped reading anything of his. Your obituary is very honest but remains warm and generous. Beautifully written.
Indeed. It was a winnowing worthy of the Day of Judgement. All my journalistic heroes turned to dust in the space of about six months. It was revelatory, dispiriting but also exciting because I realised: Hey! I'm the only hack of that generation who isn't shit!
I'm not sure if you agree with my political views or not, but O'Neill, Fox and the Spiked Online crowd are basically leftists/liberals who simply don't like what the Left has become over the last ten-to-fifteen years due to its 'authoritarian' nature. If a proper right-wing government were to assume power and they advocated censorship of content considered immoral (think of pornographic videos), the negative backlash they would receive by the aforementioned writers would be plentiful.
For some strange reason, so-called conservatives laud Spiked with praise, even though the group isn't really right-wing. Just because the magazine believes that the late Mary Whitehouse and American conservative nationalists like Nick Fuentes shouldn't be 'cancelled' by student unions, even if they have 'loathsome positions, this defence is forwarded on a liberal, 'free speech' principle, not because they politically align with these figures.
To clarify, I liked that lot because they were pro-Brexit and seemingly both anti-authoritarian and pro free speech. And quite entertaining with it. But they showed their true colours come the C & Vx assaults. They aligned themselves fairly and squarely with the ‘Regime’. As indeed Farage has - perhaps always had.
They promote the squabbling in the (narrowing) Overton window but will evidently not be around to defend their apparent principles when it really matters. At best, because they still want the gongs (Fox) and the public platforms (Liddle/O’Neill/Spiked/) and so will drop any principles accordingly. Or at worst, they are agents for the Globalists. Notwithstanding the schtick, they are (for me) unquestionably full-on Establishment.
As an aside, Spiked came out celebrating when Ireland went all-in on abortion. Another huge nail in the coffin for me. I was once a fairly generous monthly subscriber to Spiked. More fool me.
PS
Despite the unceasing media campaign at the time to ridicule Mary Whitehouse (which I fell for too), she was right on the money. Because porn is one of the weapons deployed to destroy family values (and the family) and to corrupt society.
Also to say, as you alluded to it, I now find it impossible to describe my political alignment as there is no one out there I would now align myself to. I know what I’m against however.
Above all though, I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian now and I have learned that it is to God that I must dedicate my heart, soul, and mind.
Thank you for your considered reply. I've distrusted Spiked for a while due to their earlier incarnation as 'Living Marxism'. Like you, I used to enjoy some of their commentary, but I had an unexplainable feeling that they might be deceiving their readers in some way. Regarding Mary Whitehouse, it is quite sad that many middle-aged (and older) people still have an adolescent contempt for her and the positions she outlined.
As a Christian you might be interested in this video by Vox Day that I have discovered regarding 'free speech'. It is quite fascinating as it offers what the author considers a Christian critique of the subject -- a position that is diametrically opposed to the view Spiked Online holds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKqZT8-9WUQ
Thanks, much appreciated. I will look it up. Certainly speech laced with judgement or lacking either love or forgiveness, may well be free, but is deeply sinful. But we must otherwise continue to fight for the right to speak the truth, particularly when it comes to the many tyrannies they are assaulting us with.
Great article & it seems Brendon has rubbed off on you a little perhaps It's the uncomfortable exposure of some of these events you mention, the complete infiltration & espionage of US, Russia, China, Iran, Israel & EU creation by the City of London. It needs to be called out.
Excellent piece. You're way too kind to him though imo, if he'd been inclined to search for the truth, and wasn't too puffed up with pride, he'd have found it like you, me and most of your readers. But he had no interest in doing that. Truth wasn't his passion
If he was just in delusion like most pro-vaxxers, that's ok, it's a journey but he was much more than that as you highlight - he was a hypocrite and a propagandist; his job was to encourage the demographic that read The Sun (and for whom he no doubt had contempt) to stay in the pen and follow the same destructive path he was on.
One has to ask - what was the point of all the money that he sold his integrity for? It's worth nothing to him now and he faces a fearful Final Judgement. His seal is set
Great reading, I too thought he was on “our” side until Convid. With which your words eloquently explain he was never one of Us at all. After all, money breeds contempt. He kept taking that money not wishing to risk his career.
I think we're going to spend the rest of our lives - I certainly am - trying to psychoanalyse all those freedom-loving journalists who shat the bed during Covid. Maybe it was, as you say, about money. It was definitely the case with some of the younger influencers who accepted straight bribes to push the narrative. But with older hands like Rod I'm not so sure. I still think it's more a case of Groupthink. Have you ever read a book called The Captive Mind? This is what I think happened.
I haven’t but I will most definitely seek it out. High level dive into it seems that “The New Faith” was very much in play in Rod. And the term Ketman reminds me of my old Islamic favourite, Taqiyya. Fun fact - Did you know that you can spell the word Convid from the letters of a now almost famous terminology, Cognitive Dissonance 🤔🤣. I have gone too deep down the rabbit hole. Thank you James for what you do to keep us all going and help us remain relatively sane in a world of insanity. Emphasis on the relative!
I didn't know Liddle personally but I disliked him. He reminded me of a grumpy toad. Rod Liddle's furious rant about anti-vaxxers in which he branded them as having their "brains removed with a soup spoon".
Rod Liddle was fully jabbed and boosted.
That didn't turn out too well. Another victim of the jab? Another victim of his own insensitive idiocy
I hoped that James would have something to say about RL’s sad demise, ideally a somewhat combative piece, and here it is. Very well argued - excellent.
What can I say? Every time I read James I get fully immersed. Superb! A master-class in written communication. The subject covered in forensic detail. And, the prolific use of all those beautiful adjectives and phrases.
Back in the day (that's a phrase us older people use a lot, me - more frequently than ever now), when I was an Oz Spectator subscriber, I enjoyed both James' and Rod Liddle's writing the best of all the entries.
I'm always excited when an article by James arrives in my email inbox.
Wow, Rod dead at 66. Young in the scheme if things these days, but as James points out, we are seeing this a lot now - at least that is my perception. We are all left to wonder if it was the "unhealthy" lifestyle reason that the jabbed like to fall back on, or indeed, the hastening of the end due to the multiple injections of poison, coupled with everything else the allopathic system gets the populace to participate in.
I'm saving this quote for future use:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”
Yes. That’s the quote. More pertinent today than ever. As economic circumstances become increasingly difficult — intentionally — salaries become the most effective ‘gag’ , and tool for maintaining allegiances.
'No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things.'
'How absurd the law is. But at least it is an appropriate reflection of our collective neurosis and confusion about paedophilia generally. The one laudable and necessary aim - to protect children from abuse - has become warped by our consuming, obsessive hatred for those who find children sexually attractive. There is no causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children. And even if there were, it would not be sufficient, within the philosophy of our judicial system, to simply assume that an unpleasant penchant for the former presupposes guilt of the latter.'
Yeah. Not a piece I would wish to have written, even 23 years ago when the climate was different. I wouldn't consider it necessarily damning though. Here's my view, fwiw: Rod had an incredibly pompous, pretentious side where - perhaps to compensate for the fact that he'd never been to university - he would occasionally construct pieces he thought an intellectual might write doing fancy stuff like, as here, defending the indefensible. I see this po-faced garbage as a sixth-form intellectual jeu d'esprit rather than a confession of a personal predilection for kiddy fiddling. I think his quip about not wanting to be a school teacher because he'd just want to shag the kids may have been similarly misinterpreted. It's Rod being provocative rather than Rod meaning he literally wants to shag kids.
A million pounds a year? James with your talent you could have been on 2 mill, your reward will be in the next world. Rod Liddle used to intensely annoy me, until I recently became a big fan of his Times radio show ( the only thing I ever listened to on Times radio ) which I heard by accident one day. I don’t know what he died of, but repeated jabs do suppress the immune system, the part that surveils for cancer cells. Especially certain haematological cancers. The irony being that those suffering from cancer or in remission from same, genuinely had their pants scared of and rushed to line up for the shots, believed that others who declined the shots were selfish in not wanting to ‘protect the herd’ . James Whale was another zealous advocate of the jabs. The propaganda was just too much for those suffering or in remission from cancer
Thank you Penelope. I too think my writing is worth 2 mill. But I think it was the great Alan Watt who made the point that newscasters and household name columnists don't get paid squillions because it's the market rate. They get paid squillions because their Elite paymasters find their services so invaluable.
When he said he wanted to cut a hole in his convid mask to smoke a fag, I thought "yeah-he's with us!" But no, I used to be a normie and I was wrong: he ranted about the "selfishness of the unvaccinated" Hate to say it, but he who laughs last...
As a devoted reader of both your’s and Rod’s articles over many years and several publications, I find this such a touching and thoughtful tribute to a fellow journalist. You both tried to shake things up a bit, in your own way, from fairly diametrically opposed viewpoints and backgrounds. As a working class bloke from the North, I loved Rod’s acerbic deconstructions of entrenched Leftism. He was so funny. I am shocked that he died so young, the same age as me. I was disappointed by his take on Covid, but I think your explanation for this is so poignant, that, bloody hell, I forgive him. I feel so sad.
If we harbour only vengeance in our hearts, where do we go from there? I have no window into Rod Liddle’s soul. I was disappointed by his Covid stance, but what are we to do? Cancel and cut off everyone who disagreed with us? Only one friend out of many agreed with me about the Greatest Scam Of All Time. I count myself lucky, however, that I avoided the trap, and grateful that I am still on warm terms with the rest of them.
They came after all our kids, disabled or not. I don’t know what was going on in Liddle’s head - that’s my point. Perhaps I’m cutting him too much slack, but really I’m thankful that I didn’t get dragged down to that level.
Fantastic piece 👏🏼 Well pointed out about “when it mattered”. Convid was the litmus test & pretty much every one of your pre 2020 Delingpod guests, many of whom I mistakenly admired shat the bed from March 2020 onwards. Dick is the only one I can think of who didn’t & we can probably put Mark Steyn in there too (albeit he went on to shit the bed on October 7th), I can’t think of any others? Hold the phone, I just thought of your dad too! So mainly Delingpole’s!
There was a sizeable leftie club occupying the same ‘contrarian’ territory — Brendan O’Neill, Clare Fox et al — though none of them as spitefully funny writers as RL. Before I (properly) woke up in 2020, I was an avid fan despite my underlying distaste of their socialist genes. When I first met you at your Live Podcast in 2018 in Euston I had earlier attended the packed-to-the-rafters O’Neill/Liddle ‘show’. The three of you were the stars of the moment mainly because of the anti-lib and pro-Brexit take. But, to a man and a woman they all exposed their true colours come the plandemic. Rod Liddle was the main reason I initially subscribed to the Spectator but I simply stopped reading anything of his. Your obituary is very honest but remains warm and generous. Beautifully written.
Excellent point. I think if C**vid hadn't happened, a lot of people would have higher opinions about many people and institutions.
Indeed. It was a winnowing worthy of the Day of Judgement. All my journalistic heroes turned to dust in the space of about six months. It was revelatory, dispiriting but also exciting because I realised: Hey! I'm the only hack of that generation who isn't shit!
This is so true. It is why I am still with you nearly a decade on from my first contact with you on Twitter.
Yes it really did sort the wheat from the chaff.
I'm not sure if you agree with my political views or not, but O'Neill, Fox and the Spiked Online crowd are basically leftists/liberals who simply don't like what the Left has become over the last ten-to-fifteen years due to its 'authoritarian' nature. If a proper right-wing government were to assume power and they advocated censorship of content considered immoral (think of pornographic videos), the negative backlash they would receive by the aforementioned writers would be plentiful.
For some strange reason, so-called conservatives laud Spiked with praise, even though the group isn't really right-wing. Just because the magazine believes that the late Mary Whitehouse and American conservative nationalists like Nick Fuentes shouldn't be 'cancelled' by student unions, even if they have 'loathsome positions, this defence is forwarded on a liberal, 'free speech' principle, not because they politically align with these figures.
Appreciate the reply.
To clarify, I liked that lot because they were pro-Brexit and seemingly both anti-authoritarian and pro free speech. And quite entertaining with it. But they showed their true colours come the C & Vx assaults. They aligned themselves fairly and squarely with the ‘Regime’. As indeed Farage has - perhaps always had.
They promote the squabbling in the (narrowing) Overton window but will evidently not be around to defend their apparent principles when it really matters. At best, because they still want the gongs (Fox) and the public platforms (Liddle/O’Neill/Spiked/) and so will drop any principles accordingly. Or at worst, they are agents for the Globalists. Notwithstanding the schtick, they are (for me) unquestionably full-on Establishment.
As an aside, Spiked came out celebrating when Ireland went all-in on abortion. Another huge nail in the coffin for me. I was once a fairly generous monthly subscriber to Spiked. More fool me.
PS
Despite the unceasing media campaign at the time to ridicule Mary Whitehouse (which I fell for too), she was right on the money. Because porn is one of the weapons deployed to destroy family values (and the family) and to corrupt society.
Also to say, as you alluded to it, I now find it impossible to describe my political alignment as there is no one out there I would now align myself to. I know what I’m against however.
Above all though, I am an Eastern Orthodox Christian now and I have learned that it is to God that I must dedicate my heart, soul, and mind.
Cheers.
Thank you for your considered reply. I've distrusted Spiked for a while due to their earlier incarnation as 'Living Marxism'. Like you, I used to enjoy some of their commentary, but I had an unexplainable feeling that they might be deceiving their readers in some way. Regarding Mary Whitehouse, it is quite sad that many middle-aged (and older) people still have an adolescent contempt for her and the positions she outlined.
As a Christian you might be interested in this video by Vox Day that I have discovered regarding 'free speech'. It is quite fascinating as it offers what the author considers a Christian critique of the subject -- a position that is diametrically opposed to the view Spiked Online holds. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MKqZT8-9WUQ
Thanks, much appreciated. I will look it up. Certainly speech laced with judgement or lacking either love or forgiveness, may well be free, but is deeply sinful. But we must otherwise continue to fight for the right to speak the truth, particularly when it comes to the many tyrannies they are assaulting us with.
Great article & it seems Brendon has rubbed off on you a little perhaps It's the uncomfortable exposure of some of these events you mention, the complete infiltration & espionage of US, Russia, China, Iran, Israel & EU creation by the City of London. It needs to be called out.
Excellent piece. You're way too kind to him though imo, if he'd been inclined to search for the truth, and wasn't too puffed up with pride, he'd have found it like you, me and most of your readers. But he had no interest in doing that. Truth wasn't his passion
If he was just in delusion like most pro-vaxxers, that's ok, it's a journey but he was much more than that as you highlight - he was a hypocrite and a propagandist; his job was to encourage the demographic that read The Sun (and for whom he no doubt had contempt) to stay in the pen and follow the same destructive path he was on.
One has to ask - what was the point of all the money that he sold his integrity for? It's worth nothing to him now and he faces a fearful Final Judgement. His seal is set
Great reading, I too thought he was on “our” side until Convid. With which your words eloquently explain he was never one of Us at all. After all, money breeds contempt. He kept taking that money not wishing to risk his career.
I think we're going to spend the rest of our lives - I certainly am - trying to psychoanalyse all those freedom-loving journalists who shat the bed during Covid. Maybe it was, as you say, about money. It was definitely the case with some of the younger influencers who accepted straight bribes to push the narrative. But with older hands like Rod I'm not so sure. I still think it's more a case of Groupthink. Have you ever read a book called The Captive Mind? This is what I think happened.
I haven’t but I will most definitely seek it out. High level dive into it seems that “The New Faith” was very much in play in Rod. And the term Ketman reminds me of my old Islamic favourite, Taqiyya. Fun fact - Did you know that you can spell the word Convid from the letters of a now almost famous terminology, Cognitive Dissonance 🤔🤣. I have gone too deep down the rabbit hole. Thank you James for what you do to keep us all going and help us remain relatively sane in a world of insanity. Emphasis on the relative!
You paint pictures with words like Bob Moran with colours and contrasting light and shade.......the result greater than the sum of its total parts
Thank you, Heather x
I didn't know Liddle personally but I disliked him. He reminded me of a grumpy toad. Rod Liddle's furious rant about anti-vaxxers in which he branded them as having their "brains removed with a soup spoon".
Rod Liddle was fully jabbed and boosted.
That didn't turn out too well. Another victim of the jab? Another victim of his own insensitive idiocy
Happy Bday James 61 🦋🦋💙🤗😘😘
I hoped that James would have something to say about RL’s sad demise, ideally a somewhat combative piece, and here it is. Very well argued - excellent.
What can I say? Every time I read James I get fully immersed. Superb! A master-class in written communication. The subject covered in forensic detail. And, the prolific use of all those beautiful adjectives and phrases.
Back in the day (that's a phrase us older people use a lot, me - more frequently than ever now), when I was an Oz Spectator subscriber, I enjoyed both James' and Rod Liddle's writing the best of all the entries.
I'm always excited when an article by James arrives in my email inbox.
Wow, Rod dead at 66. Young in the scheme if things these days, but as James points out, we are seeing this a lot now - at least that is my perception. We are all left to wonder if it was the "unhealthy" lifestyle reason that the jabbed like to fall back on, or indeed, the hastening of the end due to the multiple injections of poison, coupled with everything else the allopathic system gets the populace to participate in.
I'm saving this quote for future use:
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it”
Thank you. I’m always happy to hear from readers from way back. It means they know where I’m coming from and have probably been on the same journey….
Yes. That’s the quote. More pertinent today than ever. As economic circumstances become increasingly difficult — intentionally — salaries become the most effective ‘gag’ , and tool for maintaining allegiances.
Exactly! Horrible!
James,
What a read - Thank You!
I'd love to read a piece like this every week in Speccie.
I wonder if Lord Gove would consider filling the void left by Rod, with 'Something Completely Different'?
Still got my Red pill button hole - no. 79 I think!
Those Special Friend badges will be very valuable one day
No. 8 here - worth a fortune.
He wrote this.
'No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things.'
'How absurd the law is. But at least it is an appropriate reflection of our collective neurosis and confusion about paedophilia generally. The one laudable and necessary aim - to protect children from abuse - has become warped by our consuming, obsessive hatred for those who find children sexually attractive. There is no causal link between viewing child porn and abusing children. And even if there were, it would not be sufficient, within the philosophy of our judicial system, to simply assume that an unpleasant penchant for the former presupposes guilt of the latter.'
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2003/jan/14/childprotection.rodliddle
Yeah. Not a piece I would wish to have written, even 23 years ago when the climate was different. I wouldn't consider it necessarily damning though. Here's my view, fwiw: Rod had an incredibly pompous, pretentious side where - perhaps to compensate for the fact that he'd never been to university - he would occasionally construct pieces he thought an intellectual might write doing fancy stuff like, as here, defending the indefensible. I see this po-faced garbage as a sixth-form intellectual jeu d'esprit rather than a confession of a personal predilection for kiddy fiddling. I think his quip about not wanting to be a school teacher because he'd just want to shag the kids may have been similarly misinterpreted. It's Rod being provocative rather than Rod meaning he literally wants to shag kids.
Rod attended the LSE as a mature student. He apparently read social psychology, so I don't think this revelation affects your point, James.
Quip or not, it is still pedophile enabling!
A million pounds a year? James with your talent you could have been on 2 mill, your reward will be in the next world. Rod Liddle used to intensely annoy me, until I recently became a big fan of his Times radio show ( the only thing I ever listened to on Times radio ) which I heard by accident one day. I don’t know what he died of, but repeated jabs do suppress the immune system, the part that surveils for cancer cells. Especially certain haematological cancers. The irony being that those suffering from cancer or in remission from same, genuinely had their pants scared of and rushed to line up for the shots, believed that others who declined the shots were selfish in not wanting to ‘protect the herd’ . James Whale was another zealous advocate of the jabs. The propaganda was just too much for those suffering or in remission from cancer
Thank you Penelope. I too think my writing is worth 2 mill. But I think it was the great Alan Watt who made the point that newscasters and household name columnists don't get paid squillions because it's the market rate. They get paid squillions because their Elite paymasters find their services so invaluable.
Outstanding, much-needed article. Brave too.
When he said he wanted to cut a hole in his convid mask to smoke a fag, I thought "yeah-he's with us!" But no, I used to be a normie and I was wrong: he ranted about the "selfishness of the unvaccinated" Hate to say it, but he who laughs last...
Great take James.
As a devoted reader of both your’s and Rod’s articles over many years and several publications, I find this such a touching and thoughtful tribute to a fellow journalist. You both tried to shake things up a bit, in your own way, from fairly diametrically opposed viewpoints and backgrounds. As a working class bloke from the North, I loved Rod’s acerbic deconstructions of entrenched Leftism. He was so funny. I am shocked that he died so young, the same age as me. I was disappointed by his take on Covid, but I think your explanation for this is so poignant, that, bloody hell, I forgive him. I feel so sad.
If we harbour only vengeance in our hearts, where do we go from there? I have no window into Rod Liddle’s soul. I was disappointed by his Covid stance, but what are we to do? Cancel and cut off everyone who disagreed with us? Only one friend out of many agreed with me about the Greatest Scam Of All Time. I count myself lucky, however, that I avoided the trap, and grateful that I am still on warm terms with the rest of them.
They came after all our kids, disabled or not. I don’t know what was going on in Liddle’s head - that’s my point. Perhaps I’m cutting him too much slack, but really I’m thankful that I didn’t get dragged down to that level.
Was this in the UK or elsewhere? Wherever it was I support your maternal urge to seek justice for your child.
Fantastic piece 👏🏼 Well pointed out about “when it mattered”. Convid was the litmus test & pretty much every one of your pre 2020 Delingpod guests, many of whom I mistakenly admired shat the bed from March 2020 onwards. Dick is the only one I can think of who didn’t & we can probably put Mark Steyn in there too (albeit he went on to shit the bed on October 7th), I can’t think of any others? Hold the phone, I just thought of your dad too! So mainly Delingpole’s!