Rod Liddle | The Spectator columnists & writers

Demi Lovato makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky

Grade: Z If you wish to experience the full hideousness of Now, of our current age, condensed into one awful hour, then you should invest in this bucket of infected expectorant streaked with blood. It’s all there. The depthless self-absorption and introspection, the me me me. The self-aggrandising, the wallowing in victimhood, the complete lack of personal responsibility for her very bad decisions in life, the lack of discernible talent, the mawkishness, the stupidity, the facile political ‘awareness’. This is Demi Lovato, recent subject of an emetic four-part documentary on ‘her life’. Of course she is bulimic and bi-polar. Of course she nearly died of a skag (fentanyl) overdose and was a cokehead for years — none of it her fault.

The dilemma of vaccination

We have a government which is basically libertarian in its instincts, despite its current affection for telling us what we can and can’t do on a daily basis. This seems like a paradox or a non-sequitur, but it isn’t really, because in a sense it is a coalition government between libertarian politicians and a big-statist regulatory medical clergy. It is an interesting political marriage, a marriage of expediency. And it will soon become very strained. The government is about to run into big problems over its rollout of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, which many scientists believe could have a causal link to the prevalence of blood clots in a very small minority of the people who take it. The European Medicines Agency is about to announce the official finding into all this.

Why will nobody publish my religious cartoons?

I am having very little success in getting my collection of cartoons of great religious founders published. Perhaps it is because I am not known as a draughtsman and publications are notoriously conservative in hiring new talent. It is all very dispiriting. My drawings are, I think, puckish and yet respectful. For example, there is one of the Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, the man somehow regarded as divine by Rastafarians. He is depicted in a game of ten-pin bowling with Benito Mussolini, the controversial former leader of Italy. Both men seem to be enjoying themselves — Benito is holding a pint of lager while Selassie is biting into an almond Magnum, waiting their turn to roll. They are part of a foursome with Charlie Stayt, the hugely talented BBC Breakfast presenter, and Walter Ulbricht, the widely admired former leader of the German Democratic Republic.

My eight ‘good reasons’ for leaving the country

We commemorated one year of lockdown by sacrificing a goat to the Highly Revered Virus Deity on a hastily assembled altar in the back garden, in front of a blazing fire. We then drank a little of the creature’s blood and danced naked around a pentagram, delivering incantations to the Covid Divine — Oh Great Lord Of The Slightly Ticklish Persistent Cough. Vaccines were presented and respirators borne aloft. It all seemed a bit rough on the goat, frankly, which had done nobody any harm. But it was preferable to the usual rituals which we are these days enjoined to observe — the endless minute silences for everybody who has died of anything ever, taking a knee, banging saucepans to thank nurses for turning up to work.

The politicisation of Sarah Everard’s death

A woman called Jenny Jones, now elevated to Baroness Moonbeam, or something, in the House of Lords has proposed a 6 p.m. curfew for all men everywhere. This would prevent men from killing women on the streets. Mrs Moonbeam is a member of the Green party and presumably agrees with their manifesto which insists that men who identify as women are women and there’s an end to it. In which case all I would need to do is don a wig and take to the streets — and upon being apprehended by a policeman simply explain that my name was Loretta and I’d just popped out to do a spot of murdering, I mean shopping, officer. Technically speaking, I wouldn’t even need to bother with the wig. That’s one flaw in the mad woman’s argument, then.

‘My’ truth about Meghan and Harry

Caroline Rose Giuliani, the daughter of the former mayor of New York, Rudy, has been talking to the press about one of her hobbies. Apparently she likes nothing more than playing the role of a ‘unicorn’ — the third partner in a sexual liaison. She explained: ‘Finding the strength to explore these more complicated, passionate aspects of my personality became the key to harnessing my voice and creative spark, which in turn helped me better cope with depression, anxiety, and the lingering cognitive effects of adolescent anorexia.’ This is a fascinating approach to curing eating disorders, I think. Caroline’s dad, if you remember, is unable to tuck his shirt into his trousers without lying down on a bed and obtaining assistance from a young lady.

Spectator Out Loud

The Spectator’s leading article, Kate Andrews and Rod Liddle

23 min listen

Spectator Out Loud

The Spectator’s leading article, Kate Andrews and Rod Liddle

23 min listen

This week's episode features a reading of The Spectator's leading article, on how devolution has created a democratic deficit in Scotland (00:50); our economics correspondent Kate Andrews on what keeps the Chancellor up at night (7:00); and Rod Liddle on the real cause of food poverty in the UK. (16:35).

The real reasons children are going hungry

‘We’re idiots, babe, it’s a wonder we can even feed ourselves.’ I listened to The Food Programme on Radio 4 this week, because the channel finder on my car radio wasn’t working and so I was stuck with it. It was, as it almost always is, four left-wing ratbags moaning to one another. As I’ve mentioned before, this is the template for almost the entirety of the station’s output: miserable women carping endlessly about everything. It is almost impossible to know what particular programme you’re listening to. You have to keep your ears tuned for key phrases which might give you an indication. If it’s a woman teacher moaning about having to do a spot of teaching, it’s probably World At One. If the words ‘proudly reclaim my own vagina’ suddenly jump out at you, it’s probably Woman’s Hour.

In defence of Piers Morgan

The Liberal Democrat party’s foreign affairs spokesgoblin, Velma from Scooby-Doo — or ‘Layla Moran’ as she is known to close friends and family —has decided that freedom of speech on university campuses is of absolutely no consequence. Indeed, she described the government’s initiative to preserve the rights of students to hear a diverse range of opinions as ‘divisive’ and quite unnecessary, while she was appearing on one of those BBC Question Time editions that nobody watches any more. Velma presumably thoroughly approved of her own party’s subsequent decision to remove the tweeted clip of her spouting this bilge so that the public couldn’t hear it. If you are opposed to freedom of speech it is important to be consistent on the issue, and so if one’s own freedom of speech is repressed one should rejoice rather than cavil.

Where will vaccine passports take us?

Desperate to find someone to commemorate with a statue for having done great things, but who isn’t a white male, some people in Devon want to honour a couple of lesbian pirates. A statue of Anne Bonny and Mary Read has been proposed for the beauty spot of Burgh Island, to salute their important work in ‘breaking gender boundaries’ in the 18th century. Their long careers of psychotic violence and theft are easily eclipsed by the suggestion that they liked a spot of how’s your mother from time to time. A problem here is that there is no proof that they were actually lesbians. A few revisionist historians, of the kind who trawl back through the years in the hope they will find someone who might possibly have batted for the other side, have suggested as much, but that’s about it.

A criminally underrated songwriter: Matthew Sweet’s Catspaw reviewed

Grade: A– The early 1990s were a lovely time for rock music: Beck, Sparklehorse, Sugar, Green on Red and Royal Trux. I wish I’d savoured it all more at the time, not realising that Damon and Noel would come along decked in Union Jacks and suffocate us with the precious (Damon) and the oafish (Noel). There was Matthew Sweet’s first album, too — Girlfriend; the missing link between Big Star and Neil Young. He is a criminally underrated songwriter, but then power pop has never found much traction over here since the fab four called it a day. Sweet is an engaging soul with a self-deprecation that occasionally teeters into self-loathing. Like Paul Westerberg, there is intelligence, humour and subtlety in his lyrics and always, always good tunes.

What if Covid had struck in the 1970s?

The big tech bullies

I was in the kitchen preparing the family’s dinner when the inauguration of Joe Biden was on TV, so I caught only mysterious fragments of his speech, over the noise of the blender and stuff. ‘I want an hour — an hour — with my own teen wolf,’ Joe seemed to say at one point. And then: ‘America, America, I give to you my vest.’ I raced through to the living room when someone announced that Garth Crooks was going to sing ‘Amazing Grace’ — good choice, Joe, I thought. Garth seems to have lost a little weight and indeed colour, but he did a decent job. It all went well enough, given the circumstances, and at no point did Joe ask why all those people were there and was it his birthday or something. A very self-regarding young woman appeared and read an awful poem, so I went back into the kitchen.

As pretty as anything he’s written in four decades: McCartney III reviewed

Grade: A- The greatest songwriter of the 20th century, or just one of the top two or three? Who else would you have up there? Kern, Gershwin, Ray Charles, maybe. Dylan for the words along with the music. But not, I think, John Lennon. It’s McCartney’s melodic imagination that captivates and sometimes staggers — ‘Here, There and Everywhere’, ‘Maybe I’m Amazed’. The Beatle it was not OK to like, and yet who, today, would prefer to hear the overwrought ‘Strawberry Fields’ to the easy, loping chime of ‘Penny Lane’? Yes, Wings were the naffest band imaginable. But even then I would take their worst album (Red Rose Speedway) over Lennon’s solo best (Some Time in New York City). And ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ was a witty musical and lyrical parody of ‘Imagine’.

What makes us think they’ll release lockdown after vaccines?

Who volunteers to be lectured by children?

The screenwriter Russell T. Davies has said that only gay actors should be cast in gay parts, believing this leads to greater authenticity. The obvious question here is how would Russell know who is gay and who is not gay when he comes to casting? It is not always obvious, surely. Do all gay actors who attend casting sessions enter the room humming hits from Mamma Mia! before enthusing over the decor? Perhaps Russell just guesses, like I do when I’m watching the BBC weathermen flouncing around. The other obvious question is that if it’s authenticity you’re after, surely gay men must never be cast in straight roles? For reasons never properly explained, authenticity doesn’t seem to matter when it comes to straight roles.

The age of de-enlightenment

Depictions of Thomas Carlyle and David Hume in the Scottish Portrait Gallery will be altered to make it clear they were horrible racist bastards, apparently. All of the Scottish Enlightenment thinkers are under review, including Adam Smith, who thought that people living beyond Europe were largely savage. I am not sure how they will alter the bust of Carlyle — perhaps chisel a swastika on his forehead? Carlyle was certainly rightish on many issues: you don’t get Friedrich Nietzsche in your fan club if you’re woke. But when I started reading the chap, back in the late 1970s, it was for the witty and sharp Sartor Resartus that I loved him, and his essays on heroes and hero worship. ‘All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books.

At least Santa will arrive before Hermes

I took advantage of Google and NORAD’s 'Santa tracking app' to find out when my presents would be delivered. It says that my gifts should arrive in eight hours. Fine, I’m happy with that. Better than Hermes. But I notice three things. First, Google seems of the opinion that Santa is either a man or a woman, contrary to traditional thinking. There is an image of a woman Santa and a man Santa together. And yet, in the sleigh itself, there is no trace of the woman. Is she at home cooking mince pies? How recherche is that? I also notice that while Santa is allowed to be a woman, she is not allowed to be black or asian. Only whites allowed: isn’t that racist on the part of Google? I also notice that at the time I accessed the app, Santa was delivering parcels to people in Lahore and Karachi: is that not a grave insult to Islam? Happy Christmas, all of you.

‘You can’t have opinions any more’: Rick Wakeman interviewed

‘Classic rock’ is a rather fusty old oxymoron, but then the term ‘classic’ is applied these days to chocolate bars and that most in-demand of consumer undurable, lavatory paper, so I suppose one shouldn’t complain. Covid-19 will probably be remembered as a ‘classic virus’ one day not too soon, when there are other more baleful new-wave viruses with spiky hair pogoing around. ‘Classic rock’, meanwhile, is a term applied to the sort of chest-beating rawk that people of my generation admire: the Who, Bad Company, Blue Oyster Cult insisting, in timely fashion, that we should embrace death, and Lynyrd Skynyrd informing us, with unforeseen irony, that they can fly, free as a bird. The classic keyboard player Rick Wakeman, once of the classic rock band Yes, has curated a triple album of classic rock from that most magical (for me) of decades, the 1970s.

A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love

This has been the year of epic derangement

In defence of the booing Millwall fans

It is an enormous shame that the Millwall fans who booed their players for ‘taking a knee’ in support of Black Lives Matter last week were not better acquainted with one of the British BLM leaders, Sasha Johnson — they might have taken a knee themselves out of admiration. In August Ms Johnson tweeted: ‘The white man will not be our equal but our slave.’ If there is one thing Millwall supporters respect it’s aspiration, and Ms Johnson has that in abundance. I am sure the FA, the English Football League, and indeed the Millwall club board, who condemned the booing, all wish Sasha the best of luck in her exciting project. One voice should not be allowed to demean an entire movement, of course. The trouble is — and it is so tiresome to have to point this out every time the issue is raised — Ms Johnson’s views are not especially extreme in a foul organisation that wishes to dismantle capitalism and the family.

The Tavistock is a national scandal

How noble of the British Library to have apologised to the family of the late Poet Laureate Ted Hughes for having identified him as a beneficiary of slavery. The library’s scrupulous and deranged researchers had unearthed evidence that Hughes may have been a distant relative of a man called Nicholas Ferrar, born in 1592, and that Ferrar had some early involvement in the slave trade. Ferrar died childless so the precise link was not known, but it was enough for Liz Jolly’s maniacs to besmirch the man. Ms Jolly is chief librarian and the woman who said that racism was ‘a creation of white people’ — along with body odour, sin, cholera, poverty, werewolves and mosquitos, presumably. We are an inventive lot, after all.

Make Status Quo sound like Stockhausen: AC/DC’s Power Up reviewed

Spectator Out Loud

Spectator Out Loud: Rod Liddle, Paul Embery and Rachel Johnson

24 min listen

Spectator Out Loud

Spectator Out Loud: Rod Liddle, Paul Embery and Rachel Johnson

24 min listen

On this week's episode, Rod Liddle reflects on the public sector pay freeze, and wonders why teachers won't teach. (00:50) Next, Paul Embery argues that the Labour Party has become disassociated with the working class. (07:03) Finally, Rachel Johnson explains why she wishes Christmas was cancelled. (17:40)

The public sector delusion

I wonder how much more money we will have to bung the teachers in order to inculcate within them an amenability towards doing a spot of teaching? They still seem terribly averse to the whole idea. During the first lockdown, 60 per cent of young children received no virtual lessons at all from teaching staff, and one in five pupils over 12 was given no work to do, according to the Children’s Commissioner. Virtual lessons shouldn’t have been terribly difficult to arrange, but most of the time there were none. My own daughter had no virtual lessons from March to July (which is why she’s no longer in the state sector). She did, however, complete five physics papers and, being scatty, sent them — one after the other — to the wrong email address.

The march of the fascist mushrooms

It has been too long coming. While conscientious and decent liberals have tried to explain why, to their horror, millions of people in Europe and the USA have embraced populist causes in recent years, none has really got near the nub of the issue, dug down to the very core. For example, I have long been of the opinion that the Brexit vote, along with the 2016 election of Donald Trump and the continued popularity of right-wing governments in Poland and Hungary, are almost entirely the consequences of the malign influence of fungi. I have attempted to advance this argument in political debates but am never taken seriously. Now at last I have some support. Next week at Loughborough University Dr Lenka Vrablikova will be delivering a guest lecture entitled: ‘Othering Mushrooms: Migratism and its Racist Entanglements in the Brexit Campaign.

Voters have lost their nerve

Elections teach us nothing. Instead, each tribe dredges succour from the minutiae, proving that they had been right all along. The moderate left — here and in the US — insists that tacking to the centre is the way to beat a populist right-winger, despite the fact that Joe Biden won by the skin of his teeth, through the votes of people who couldn’t be arsed to go to the polls on polling day and against a candidate of whom the most charitable description would be ‘fundamentally deranged’. The woke far left, meanwhile, argues the reverse, implying that the tightness of the vote was down to a lack of progressive zeal, much as was the Democrat failure to capture the Senate. Everything that happens in the world today is simply grist to the mill of whoever’s side you are on.

Demi Lovato makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky

Demi Lovato makes Taylor Swift resemble Dostoevsky

The dilemma of vaccination

The dilemma of vaccination

Why will nobody publish my religious cartoons?

Why will nobody publish my religious cartoons?

My eight ‘good reasons’ for leaving the country

My eight ‘good reasons’ for leaving the country

The politicisation of Sarah Everard’s death

The politicisation of Sarah Everard’s death

‘My’ truth about Meghan and Harry

‘My’ truth about Meghan and Harry

The Spectator’s leading article, Kate Andrews and Rod Liddle

The Spectator’s leading article, Kate Andrews and Rod Liddle

The real reasons children are going hungry

The real reasons children are going hungry

In defence of Piers Morgan

In defence of Piers Morgan

Where will vaccine passports take us?

Where will vaccine passports take us?

A criminally underrated songwriter: Matthew Sweet’s Catspaw reviewed

A criminally underrated songwriter: Matthew Sweet’s Catspaw reviewed

What if Covid had struck in the 1970s?

What if Covid had struck in the 1970s?

The big tech bullies

The big tech bullies

As pretty as anything he’s written in four decades: McCartney III reviewed

As pretty as anything he’s written in four decades: McCartney III reviewed

What makes us think they’ll release lockdown after vaccines?

What makes us think they’ll release lockdown after vaccines?

Who volunteers to be lectured by children?

Who volunteers to be lectured by children?

The age of de-enlightenment

The age of de-enlightenment

At least Santa will arrive before Hermes

At least Santa will arrive before Hermes

‘You can’t have opinions any more’: Rick Wakeman interviewed

‘You can’t have opinions any more’: Rick Wakeman interviewed

A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love

A conciliatory P.J. O’Rourke is not the satirist we know and love

This has been the year of epic derangement

This has been the year of epic derangement

In defence of the booing Millwall fans

In defence of the booing Millwall fans

The Tavistock is a national scandal

The Tavistock is a national scandal

Make Status Quo sound like Stockhausen: AC/DC’s Power Up reviewed

Make Status Quo sound like Stockhausen: AC/DC’s Power Up reviewed

Spectator Out Loud: Rod Liddle, Paul Embery and Rachel Johnson

Spectator Out Loud: Rod Liddle, Paul Embery and Rachel Johnson

The public sector delusion

The public sector delusion

The march of the fascist mushrooms

The march of the fascist mushrooms

Voters have lost their nerve

Voters have lost their nerve

I’ve heard worse things — the death rattle of a close relative, for example: Kylie’s Disco reviewed

I’ve heard worse things — the death rattle of a close relative, for example: Kylie’s Disco reviewed