Jade Goody reminds us how arbitrary is success and how close to death we are

ian skidmore

Of course you could have written about something else In choosing to write about this particular someone in terms no great distance from jubilant you betray yourself, rather than her. The Media of which we arew bot members has hurled golds coins at this woman's head. Did you honestly expect her not to pick them up? Clearly you have never been poor.
She is a creature we have created. It ill behoves us to crow over her remains

Gannet

There is terrible sadness about this. Whatever Jade is or was or anything one can only hope that she recovers and finds good health. Rod mentions the fragrance that is marketed in her name. How many are aware is that the chemical load that modern fragrances, along with other products, are putting on to us may well be a cause of the cancer plague affecting the young? There is little or no research into this, for all the usual reasons. Even although the great majority of them are effectively traffic emissions with added strong petro-chemical aromatics engineered to adhere for a very long time, and to give a bit hit to the brain and lungs.

shark

I like the sound of Ian Skidmore.

paul gilboy

Your right in victorian times people would go and see freaks in a circus.
In earlier days they would pay a penny to poke the lunatics in bedlam.
I think that speaks more about the the people poking the lunatics than the lunatics.
The tabloids and the agents who facilitiate Goody are the modern day purvayors of sticks or the owners of big tents.
People will look bak in a hundred years and think we were not civilized

Hugh

Is this the most wretched article the Spectator's ever published?

The lack of self awareness is stunning – as if Rod’s not one of the “middle-class hacks” for whom “Goody is something to berate the rest of us about, for our tastelessness and callousness”.

This article’s of a piece with the crass, coarsening, and narcissistic culture of Big Brother and reality TV. The symmetry and cluelessness of it all is amazing.

John Thomas

I wonder if Jade's sad situation will bring change, real change, to the awful celebrity culture that produced her, and which - as Rod says - she so completely represents? Will it change the attitudes of the (awful) media bosses? Max Clifford (her publicist) and his ilk? The many who looked up to her (so Rod seems to be saying), and bought her perfume? Celebrity mags (those parasites who feed off such people)? Will any of them ask themselves serious questions (like the women queueing up for cervical smears)about the nature of life (and death), and society? I wonder! I hope so. But I'm not very optimistic.

Max (but not Clifford)

Unworthy of you Mr Liddle.

Jade Goody is not stupid (nor is she ugly as some say) and even if she was, would it be right to condemn her for it? Would you condemn people for the colour of their skin, or race, or physical disability? Would you condemn people who are so brain damaged that they think there is a god?

If she is attacked because she represents the new lower classes or underclass, then that is very wrong. You should be attacking the corrupt deadbeats who rule over us and imposed their infantile world-view on to us (people very like you Mr Liddle) responsible for creating that new underclass. Jeering at her is like making fun of the people who recently lost their savings because they trusted the establishment supposed to protect them.

The real problem is the infantalisation of our ruling classes, which includes the media, so that there is now a new belief system: believe whatever you want to believe. The very dregs of Britain – indeed.

We believe we can educate our children to a high standard without demanding hard-work from them or their teachers. (We even believe that you can teach children without bothering to have them all sitting facing the same direction and towards the teacher). We believe that an exam which has been specially made easy so that practically everyone can pass is as valuable as an exam that hasn’t.

We believe that if you pay people the same amount whether they work or whether they don’t work they will choose to work

We believe that (immigration) history should be distorted to reflect the wishes of our rulers. You in the media and “show business” generally are especially culpable and gullible in this regard.

Of course her great sin is that she is said to be racist. That automatically denies her access to all human rights, even sympathy as she faces death. Of course the fact that there is no definitive measure of racism alters nothing. Racism is just what some infantile intellect in the media says it is. Neither more, nor less.

For me; I’m glad she is able to make money for the benefit of her children.

The only thing we know for sure about our rulers who created that underclass is that they are incompetent to a degree that beggars belief and they are utterly corrupt.

There you are; a couple of really worthy targets for you.

For starters perhaps you could you find-out if Jacqui Smith’s sister has filed a tax return showing 24 grand a year earnings from her famous lodger.

Bet you can’t and bet she didn’t.

David Lindsay

Poor Jade Goody. “Reality” television and the wider culture that it spawned are finally reaching their nadir. And that is quite a feat.

Time was when she would have gone to something called a Secondary Modern school. Think of the people you know who attended these much-reviled institutions. They do not wonder why Eskimos’ eyes do not freeze over. They do not imagine there to be a country called “East Angular”.

And if their children and grandchildren had been able to follow them to Secondary Moderns, then 'Big Brother' would have been lucky to make it past series one, or even to be commissioned at all. Never mind who would have watched it. Who could possibly have considered appearing on it?

David Bouvier

Well, hopefully her probable horrid death will cause young women to respond to letters about abnormal smears rather than ignore them.

Marc O'Polo

Remember Rod: "You cannot win an argument against an ignorant man". (Eg: "Hugh") Mind you, I'm a bit worried about the "infantilisation of our ruling classes" ("Max", [but not C]: If only! We poor saps might have a chance!

Wills

There is only one significant something that separates this article from the "Lawks, ain't it awful!" prurience of hoi polloi. Rod Little gets paid to maunder on.

A. MacAulay

I remember watching, "The year of the sex olympics" (which I see in wiki was in 1968) and this is a perfect case of society following art. We've arrived!

Once upon a time the BBC was good at this sort of thing.

John Corfield

If you put forward a film script of Ms Goody,s life todate it would declined as being in bad taste, poor thing to live her short minor celebrity life in the surreal brutish world of reality TV.
Please let her find the strength in her final days to be in the solitude of her family away from the TV Producers who would dearly love to film and make money from her personal tragedy.

robert thornton

We inexorably continue to head towards negative cynical reporting and journalism. The positive is excluded, the poison evident and after constantly finding the lowest common denominator you wonder how they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning.

Louise

What a bizarrely venomous piece. Perhaps though, your venom is less directed at Jade, and more towards the tastelessness and callousness of your own fascination with her.

zoe

i cannot believe you have been so insensitive. jade has 2 small children and the pain she will endure will be agony. i witnessed the death of a family member from cancer and its the worst thing ever having to say your goodbyes. 'writer' you havent got a bloody clue, you arrogant fool!!!

Lillian

Your vile venom beggars belief. Who on eath placed you in such a position that you feel you have the right to judge the lives and choices made by others. You, nor I, have any idea what it has been like for Jade or why she has chosen the paths she has travelled. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. The women is dying and doing it in the only way she knows how. Her strength an courage is to be admired. Her only hope now is to earn enough money so that her boys will be afforded better opportunities in life than she had. There is such power in words and you could have ignored the mistakes in this young woman's past and applauded her courage born in the face of adversity.

Jean-Marc Vanderloo

"How much lower than that is it possible to get? What, actually, could you do that would be more demeaning or depraved?"

I don't know, writing articles likr this is a start. This is the sort of life pompous, middle-class ex-socialists have to endure.

MillyVanilla

This article is staggering in its lack of empathy. The line about smearing the perfume over your body is so incredibly foul and nasty that it's a surprise it got past the editors at all. If this is what it means to be a cultural commentator, I'd rather be a chav. A far more dignifed and honest existence.

Michelle Morrison

I am disgusted with you Mr Riddle, clearly you do not have any children yourself or such empathy would have at least leaked a little from your cold report. There are two little children who are going to be left without a mother in a couple of months, a mother who cannot hold them, hug them, kiss them. Jade is thinking of her sons future and that is what any mother would do no matter who they were or what they had done.

Sharon Woods

People who say horrible things about Jade Goody are just horribe. She is a human being an a mum to a 4 and 5 year old who dont deserve to live their life without their mum who has tried so hard to give them the charmed childhood that she never had. I dont blame her for selling her story in order to create a future for her two boys and being a mother myself, me hearts breaks knowing that she has to leave the two most precious people in her life.

karen selby

This is the most uncompassionate vile peice I have ever read, I hope you or any of your loved ones never suffer from this terrible disease you horrible little man

Jane

You twazzock!

Lauren

I have to say I am quite shocked, disgusted and almost speechless at this piece. Love or hate Jade all we should be saying about her right now is that we are sorry for her suffering and our thoughts are with her family. No-one deserves to die like this, particularly not a 27-year old young lady with two young children who will grow up a) without a mother and b) with a mother remembered for all the wrong reasons.

Helen

STOP! SIT DOWN! SHUT UP -- AND LISTEN!!!
This young -- YOUNG -- lady is dying! She is dying of a horrible wide spread cancer. No matter how you view her life and career -- put your self in her place -- DO YOU WANT TO DIE AT 27 AND LEAVE SMALL CHILDREN??
Have compassion.
Have sympathy.
No matter how you view her life -- just remember we are as vulnerable as she was to cancer.
Pray for the ease of her passing.
Pray for her two small sons.
I will think of her daily. I never followed her career -- but as a Buddhist I feel a great deal of compassion for this poor unfortunate young lady -- and others should to - instead of making capital of her plight.

Vicky

I think this piece is arrogant and vile with no empathy.
'The brain now tells us that when we are buying Controversial! we are buying the whiff of stage 4 metastatic terminal cervical cancer. Go on, why don’t you, splash it all over.' It's quite sick,really I feel I want to complain about this.

Andy

Rod, you really are a monumentally tasteless, cold hearted, monstrous hypocrite. Here's an idea - why not stop making money out of Jade Goody by not writing about her?

Aisha Selvey

Having read the article on Jade, and the comments posted following, there are just a couple of things I would like to add. No matter who or what she is/was, Jade is a fellow human being and as someone else commented, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone" I therefore hope that none of us has to suffer what will be one of the most painful and devastaing to family deaths possible. NO ONE deserves this. May God give her peace and strength in her last months and look after her children when she is gone. Jade if you read this, MAY GOD BLESS YOU.

Lindsey

You call Jade a chav...? Let me think of some words that come to mind about you after reading this "article"... pompous, arrogant, egotistical, shameless, vile.... I could go on.

What gives you the right to pass judgement? In fact, what was the point of writing this in the first place? Did it make you feel better about yourself in some way..?

She's dying, she knows it, and all she is trying to do is leave behind the best she can for her children. I'm the same age as Jade, with a daughter who's 6, and I just hope that I would have the same fight and courage if I was put in the same awful position.

I'm dumbfounded that you have actually been paid money for this....

trish

We all come into this world the same way,and hard though it my seem for you to believe we all go out the same way,it's never pretty believe me,i've seen it.I hope and pray that this devoted,caring mother,is not spending her hard earned money on private education for her beautiful children at the same school you went to,as someone has clearly let you down with regard moral education.

Muriel

What a nasty, nasty, nasty article. Clearly, the writer has no heart.

CHRISTINA

Rod,
Finding this article today has upset me. By passing comment on your feelings and thoughts on Jade Goody and the reality circus which surrounds her you are making yourself a part of this new age institution by even writing about it. Obviously Jade has affected you enough for you to take your thoughts and comments to publish, so in my opinion you are no better - nor worse than the tabliod moguls you criticise. Yes Jade is in the public eye, and due to her horrible, short cut future is now manipulating the media more than ever, but if she wants to do this in order to earn more money for her sons future so be it, i say. At least this 'reality star' was 'famous' for who she was, and not some silver spooned politician's offspring who only had to be born into this world to feed from the public's taxpaying money. Like it or not Jade is an example of the society of today, she is not a bad person and she was chosen by a large percentage of the UK's population for the media position she is in at the minute.
You're article was of the most heartless taste, you should pay your fee to cancer research - after all you are in the rat race the same as everyone else you speak of.....

Claire B

You write for a publication called the 'spectator' and have just been paid for an article about Jade, your hypocrisy can be no more absolute.

One wonders whether your apparent moral indignation is really that, or whether you are simply trying to earn your piece of the pie before it is too late.

Jade is a good and decent person, she is however the product of a society that turns a blind eye whilst children become carers to their disabled or drug/alcohol addicted parents. Only to point and laugh at them when, surprise surprise, they leave school with little or no knowledge.

At least, this one small mercy, she had the tenacity to make money out of these very same people. She will now use that to provide her children with the education that she was denied; I can think of no greater sacrifice than to have lived her life over the last few years as people like you ridiculed and reviled her in equal measures and continue doing so, all so she could then provide for her family.

Furthermore, how dare you suggest that she didn't realise the seriousness of her illness because she was, by your pompous standards, too thick.

When she had her reproductive organs removed, she would have known. When she was in the MRI machine whilst doctors looked for secondary cancer, she would've known. When she was having radiotherapy alignment tattoos done, she would have known...you arrogant fool.

Your article is morally bankrupt and given the timing of last weeks announcements, shocking that it was published.

Enjoy your cheque Mr Liddle.

EmmaD

Shame on you Mr Liddle. Shame on you.

E

I can't believe such a sick, horrible article about a terminall ill woman has been published. You should be ashamed of youselves! I am not a fan of Jade nor do i agree with the reason behind her fame. However, she is a young woman with 2 small children who has only a short time left to live, surely you could find someone else to be prejudice about for the remaining few weeks of her life!!!!

Nick Chambers

Both my mother and sister suffered from cancer; fortunately they have both survived this dreadful and indiscriminate disease. I feel torn between the view of Jade as the ignorant media created moron and the fact that she is someones child, mother, lover and friend. It could be argued that why should we feel anything for this crass and vulgar woman? After all thousands will die of cancer this year in Britain; where is their story? However, I can't help feeling that her life has been a tragedy and for this reason deserves our sympathy.Jade has certainly done herself no favours, but there is something incredibly distasteful about the media's craven appetite for the minutiae of her private life. I suppose everything has its price.

kjane

I am in complete aggreement with 'Zoe's' comments. Is it really necessary to make such negative comments against someone who is facing up to the fact that they are going to die. I feel that we should be looking at the real Jade Goody, the a woman, who as a child, had to bring herself up. Both her parents were incapable of looking after Jade due to drink and drugs. She was unable to have a good education because she was too busy looking after her own mother. Jade has shown bravery and her only conceren has been for her children and as she says 'I want them to have what i never had, an education' does this sound like someone who is stupid and common and all of the other negative comments Mr Liddle has so insensitivly written?......I think not.

Jo

This is one of the worst articles that you have ever written, I find your vile arrogant attitude belittles you. I also find your tasteless comments vile. Choose a better topic next time or even better still quit I certainly won't be reading anything you write again.

Sacha

You very unkind man. Where is your humanity. This is a 27 year old girl that is dying and leaving two small children. May God not touch your loved ones in the same way. It is very sad and you must be lacking as a human being not to have compassion for this young woman. Shame on you!

Tina Tango

Good God, I cant believe that you were paid to write this. You should be ashamed of yourself. Talk about kicking someone when they are down. You are a heartless bad person. Shame on you

Bea

Rod Liddle you should be bloody well ashamed of yourself.People make mistakes- this lady is dying and you make fun. I wonder what people would day about you, if you was in this position- because from where im sitting it can't be that good!!!!

Pam

This is a nasty piece of reporting. The poor girl is dying and trying to do her best to leave enough money to see her kids through their education in the only way that she knows how.Shame on you!I can't imagine in my wildest dreams how I would face such a diagnosis but I would hope that I wouldn't have to face such arrogant and venomous remarks.

Lauren

I'm not, and never really was an admirer of Jade's. Particularly following the Celebrity Big Brother events a couple of years ago. You only have to read the comments on any Jade-related YouTube video to see that certain people still hold a lot of anger and hatred towards her actions.
In spite of what she may or may not have done in the past, it is absolutely sickening to see such a lack of sympathy and compassion for a young woman who's life is going to be cut short (in as little as 8 weeks, some say) in such a tragic and scary way.

I can only assume that you don't have children, Rod, and that you've never experienced a family member or friend with cancer.

I would advise you to watch the LivingTV show which documents Jade's day-to-day handling of the disease. I have seen bits and pieces, and it is absolutely heart-wrenching. In my opinion she is dealing with her prognosis incredibly well. I do wonder how strong you will be, should you or someone close to you one day face anything similar.

Your article was in terrible taste, and I sincerely hope Jade nor her family ever read it. Such an arrogant, pompous article from a total hypocrite.

You should donate your fee from this piece to a worthy cause and try and do your best to crawl out of the rat race that you've condemned in the last three pages.

A. MacAulay

How strange? I re-read this article to see what the mostly female commentators, Jo, Sacha ,Tina Tango etc. have seen that I haven't. Apparently the article lacks reverence and circumspection and most especially a degree of hallowed empathy for the suffering Jade Goody. Actually the article is not bad and makes us aware of the dehumanising effects of the media, the manipulative and distorting influence of money and that we are all demeaned by what's happening to Jade in that her very real suffering and fear is being displayed in such a prurient and shameless way, as entertainment.

I believe these ladies have mistaken projection with empathy ( not to mention mixing up subject with object ) and speak more of their own fears than common feeling for Jade. This makes them perfect active consumers for the Live Life Show. I suggest their piling as many teddies and flowers as they can in front of Jade's home so that she can not only be buried in Westminster Abbey but also that she ascends to heaven to become a saint or demi-god to whom one can pray and sacrifice in times of need.

robert

Oh dear Rod! Your self-perpetuating image as the Chav's friend hasn't done you any favours here, has it? Seems like the classic Spectator punishment of being frogmarched off to Liverpool is in store for you...

Helen

What a nasty vile little man you are Mr Liddle. Jade's courage is inspiring and highlights the importance of young women having smear tests to eradicate this killer disease People like you don't deserve to be paid for writing such uncaring drivel you are a leech living off other peoples' misfortune.

Kari

This article is heartless, tasteless and fuelled with the type of arrogance only a complete ignoramus could muster. Having read not only the article but also the comments that follow i can only think the writer is either completely lacking in any grasp of humanity or has simply written this to cause controversy, which is still pretty low given the situation Jade is currently in (as are so many other people across the world). I note the comments by A. MacAulay suggesting the article is not specifically directed at Jade herself more at the media circus and public reaction for her and those like her. Although this may be true (who knows what R Liddle was thinking when he wrote this as of course he will make no comment) it is still in poor taste and a completely unnecessary article at this moment in time. If A. MacAulay is correct and that is what the article is about then surely it could have been less specific in focussing on Jade and also should not have been published at this time. Having lost so many family members of my own to various cancers I must agree with several other people on here saying R Liddle should donate his fee for this article to a cancer charity. That would at least show some form of compassion. I hope none of R Liddle's family or friends are victims of the attrocities of cancer, however, I feel that may be the only thing that would make this writer realise why writing such a piece (for any reason) was unacceptable and immaturely thoughtless.

Justine D

Have to agree with A. MacAulay - I think many posters here seem to be missing the point.

Rod Liddle is not attacking Jade for the person she is, but the media for what they have made her.

The inhumanity of which these posters write is not properly directed at Liddle; rather it should be the media - that great, greedy mechanical monster that chews up the lives of ordinary people and turns them, as if by magic, into celebs.

Why? Because we want it. We have a hunger for this kind of hagiography. It is not the fault of Liddle that there are tragic elements in the life story of Jade Goody. It is not the fault of Liddle that she was a soft target for the media.

If anyone is to blame, it is ourselves.

Fern Winter

Mr Liddle, this is a very harsh piece. It's perfectly possible to have every sympathy with Jade Goody and the awful situation she finds herself in while deploring the 'Jade Goody' phenomena that's given fame and fortune to a person of little or no talent or accomplishment. It's a sad reflection on our society's values that Jade will 'earn' more for her story during the next few weeks than the nurses caring for her will see during a lifetime of hard work

Jez

***SCREEEECH***!!!!!!

Brakes on everyone!

Before we go the enrichment way of booting in a effigy of Rodders, hanging it from the nearest lamp-post and burning the thing alive- could i ask this question;

How may of you lot stuck in vocally when Goody was stitched up big time on 'Big Bruv'?

And she *was* Stitched up by CH4, all the presenters and the papers to an unprecedented scale seen on our politically correct UK media.

It's all right giving it the large because she's now (with genuine sincerity) unbelievably and tragically dying of cancer now but where was the rational, fair approach from everyone when she was up against it then?

angelica of essex

poor jade she had a poor start in life shecould have disowed her mum but she did notbut she sorted mother out

Wynne Greenhalgh

No, Jade didn't have your education and advantages, Rod, did she?

But then she didn't choose to prostitute herself like you did and have herself filmed on an illegal Israeli settlement, sitting at the kitchen table and gazing adoringly at an illegal Israeli settler living on stolen Palestinian land while that illegal settler spewed out hatespeak about Arabs, did she?

Susan Jane Spence

Mr Liddle ,
Are you so completely devoid of compassion ?
Is it to be deemed clever to write up such insensitive tripe, while berating someone elses life and how they live it ??
I feel Very sorry for you

Magda

Rod Liddle, you'r so culturally biased and class prejudiced it stinks. You have a point in berating often vacuous celebrity culture, even popular culture is certainly not all good, but neither is 'aquired taste' high brow culture or Brit Art, or the contents of The Spectator.

In your article you demonstrate only that you are just as inherently obscene and vulgar as the 'trash' you purport to identify as distasteful, and your judgement is worth a greasy sausage. You are not qualified to judge, despite or perhaps because of your so called education, which has corrupted you into a self-satisfied, conceited, affront to civilization.

It seems really you have lost the ability to think and to feel. There is no value in being full of prejudice.

Especially in berating Jade (and berating her quite so brutally) you make a huge horrible error of judgement that speaks volumes only about your very own vulgarity and lack of decency and humanity.

It's a pity that you fail to appreciate what Jade has achieved. No, she doesn't quite fit withing the narrow confines of your warped tastes, she's no slender English rose, and she's no shrinking violet, that'll cower in the shadows, she's a jolly bonny young lass, and her lack of education was for many people never an object of redicule but quite to the contrary. People were pleasantly surprised how anassuming a nature she had, and how her lack of education seemed not an impediment to her charm, but part of it, her 'uneducated' innocence and naivitee was cute and refreshing. What shone through was her bright cheerful personality, and her ability to connect and communicate with people.

What shone through was particularly how much care she took to change the public perception of her being a 'racist' and how genuine her apology for her lapse of decorum in the big brother house was. She did the right thing. It certainly convinced me that she was genuine about it.

None of us are completely free of ever having racist presumptions. That's what Jade's big brother episode illustrated, how easy it is for any one of us, to slip into racist remarks or even just hurtful ones in an argument.

We should all take more care to be less racist and prejudiced, especially Rod Liddle should look at himself and cry buckets about how hurtful and stupid this article is, and many views that he holds.

Carol Saunders

I agree totally with Rod Liddle. Thank heavens there are people like him around who
are not afraid to say what they think.

My bit for what it's worth is ...Hang on a minute, what about the rest of us who have
had CC eh, who the hell helps us, those of us who aren't celebs? What really pisses
me off especially is that they are putting CC down to the fact that you must have screwed
around in your younger days and lived in a poor area. What a load of bollocks,
I am now almost embarrassed to admit to having CC!

Oh and coupled with the fact that yes I could lose my middle class home as the
Government only saw fit to pay me £60 per week when I was having my treatment! Well
you know something folks £60 a week does not pay my middle class mortgage, let alone
my middle class Council Tax is St. Albans suburbia.

Jill

The next tasteless episode in this poor woman's saga will be the state funeral authorised by our desperate-for-votes leader and a motorcade Diana-style cortege to a buriel in some desperate-for-publicity media twit's stately pile. And don't forget acres of flowers strewn across the capital and a memorial water spout somewhere or other. God what a state we're in.

Stuart

I have to say I agree with A. MacAulay and Justine D. The whole point of this excellently written article seems to have eluded most of the indignant commentators. I commend you, Rod, for having the courage to write such an article, when you must have anticipated many people would misinterpret it. Unfortunately some people have a tendency to decide the tone of an article before they've even finished the first paragraph, and are already spitting the words "Shame on you!". I'll wager these same people were spewing vitriol about Jade around the time of the Shilpa Shetty "poppadom" incident. Is it just a coincidence that several of these people's posts look remarkably like they typed them with their elbows?

I count myself lucky in as much as I am unable to receive the channel that has won the rights to broadcast the last few weeks of Jade's life. This means I'm hardly likely to stumble across it while channel surfing. Dying of Cancer is a deeply personal thing, and not for public consumption. My Dad died 3 months ago from metastatic pancreatic cancer. No way would I have wanted the world looking in on such a personal time between a father and son. By the same token, nor would I want to intrude in the last few weeks of Jade Goody's life. But all the time these morbidly obsessed people clamour for more and more coverage of her decline, their voyeuristic appetite will be catered for by the ringmaster. Am I comparing this to a circus? Possibly. I've never been a big fan of circuses myself. You pay your entrance fee, then sit on a hard seat in a tent that smells of elephant dung, while people thumb their noses at the jaws of death in an effort to entertain you. Sound familiar? Only without the smell of elephant dung. My point is, all the time there is an audience for this intrusive, morbid, car-crash TV - someone will provide it. Just like a flame needs oxygen to burn, once it's oxygen supply is exhausted, the flame will vanish. If enough people stopped watching this appalling excuse for entertainment, they wouldn't broadcast it. It really is that simple.

I feel quite bad for Jeff Brazier in all of this. Whilst I understand her motive for wanting to collect as much money as possible in order to give her children a good education, it does display a lack of faith in Jeff's ability to provide for his children. Maybe I'm just cynical, but if I were him, I'd be annoyed at the insinuation.

That's my two penneth. Yeah yeah, I know, shame on me. I'm entitled to my opinion without needing to feel ashamed.

rod liddle

Mr McAulay and others - many thanks for that. My guess is that the majority of the responses on here are not from the usual Spectator readers, but people directed here from another site. This may explain the failure to grasp the point of the piece...............

Singer Fan

God god, what a snobby wanker this Liddle is.

He describes Goody as "coarse, fabulously ignorant, common, crushingly low of brow both physically and metaphorically, overweight, sexually incontinent, famously racist and spewed out from a home not so much broken as smashed into pieces, a home of smackheads and crackheads."

The people who write such vitriol obviously consider themselves far superior to Goody without seeing the irony that her social mishaps arose from disadvantage.

What's their excuse for being so intentionally hurtful about a dying woman who is scared witless about the prospect of her children forgetting her, or of ever being as poor as she was?

If Goody is really as undignified as her critics suggest, they might reconsider their notions of dignity.

Never before has such an ordinary person been so criticised for exercising what should be considered a fundamental human right.

Surely, dying with dignity means our individual choices are respected, no matter that others might choose differently for themselves?

Why is it that she is considered tacky for dying publicly, but women such as Belinda Emmett, Clare Oliver and Jane McGrath are viewed as saintly for making a valuable contribution to public health awareness?

Of course, Emmett, Oliver and McGrath were all far more ladylike than Jade. But isn't it important for public health awareness to extend across the social spectrum?

Is money perhaps the issue? That Goody is cashing in on her own death? If so, why is it OK for educated and articulate people to be paid for going out with a public bang, but not the uneducated?

Hang your head in shame, Liddle.

Richard Mumford

I doubt that Jade, her immediate family, or any of her friends, will ever read this article.

It's probably safe to say that it won't do her any harm.

But I suspect it will haunt Rod Liddle for the rest of his life. Not because he's said anything so bad that he deserves to be hung, but because he made an error of judgement - he chose the wrong subject.

However good the writer, some subjects just don't lend themselves to smart-arsed journalism.

susan

Mr Mumford , Your last sentence sums it up perfectly in a nut shell .

zoe anderson

dear little rod,
you write and cast your views as such a little middle class intellect. Rod my dear, higher education is no longer exclusive, in fact to have a degree is ten a penny these days. Your middle class bigotted views make me think that you were an average working class boy who has now moved into a profession where you feel the need to belittle everyone else and escape your roots. by writing such an article you have showed yourself to be an arrogant tosser!!! you should remember rod you are not exempt from such illnesses yourself and i wonder who will feel sorry for you?