The Spectator

Cad of the year 2014: The nominations are in…

…from Jilly Cooper, Rod Liddle, Petronella Wyatt, Rachel Johnson and more

Taki

What a pity this competition is not open to members of the fairer sex. Marie Christine of Kent would make an ideal winner. Among the men, of course, we have an embarrassment of riches. Tony Blair, John Bercow, Russell Brand, Jonathan Ross, A.A. Gill, Charles Saatchi, I could go on until the next millennium. However agonising it was to pick the cad of all cads, do step forward Matthew Freud, a man I’m fortunate to say I have never met but have heard and read enough about to convince me he’s the one. In his never-ending quest for power, riches and fame, Freud has managed to reach the depths of narcissism, lubricity, arse-licking and bullying, always couched in a Uriah Heep manner towards those richer and more powerful. He’s the master of boot-licking upwards and kicking downwards. I only hope he wins and accepts his prize, as likely an event as yours truly marrying Jeremy Clarke.

Jilly Cooper

I would choose Kevin Pietersen as my Cad of the Year. He is divinely attractive and a wonderful cricketer, particularly batsman, moving like a dancer round the field. Alas, cricket is a team game and Pietersen seems to think only of himself, stirring up trouble in the dressing room, to the appalling extent of texting the opposition on how to topple his own captain. Jolly caddish behaviour! In a romantic novel, however, he would be the ideal hero. He would meet a lovely girl who would say, ‘You’re so up yourself, Kevin, you’ll never get up me, unless you mend your ways!’ And he would mend them and would win her heart and win cricket matches for England again.

Rod Liddle

My cad of the year is Theresa May for allowing bearded and deranged jihadis to take over the country’s entire education system and also for stabbing her covertly sharpened kitten heels into the pristine, Presbyterian groin of our Education Secretary, Michael Gove.

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