Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
The news is always grim, isn’t it? Doom and gloom everywhere. And even the news which appears to be good has a dark cloud hovering behind it. For example, we frequently hear reports of British-born jihadis being killed in Syria, either by blowing themselves up in the familiar, traditional manner or being bombed by the
So – the Rochester and Strood by-election next Thursday. Who will win? I’ve been there a few times recently and my guess, from a feeling in my water, is that it will be Ukip by about ten thou. Good, I suppose. That will shake them all up a bit more, no? Last night, I watched the
The latest instalment of what is becoming a regular feature: admiring the work of academics at places which, these days, we must call universities. This week let’s hear it for Professor Eric ‘Gumby’ Anderson, who lectures in Sports Sociology at the King Alfred Teacher Training College, or Winchester University as it is now known. One
Today I went on the Daily Politics, presented by Andrew Neil. Talked about a bunch of stuff and then debated the issue of political correctness with Zoe Williams, from The Guardian. Look, I like Zoe. She’s ok. But she tried to argue that all the recent revelations about the sexual abuse of young white girls by
It is interesting that neither Scotland nor Wales have been much bitten by the Ukip bug. The supposedly sensible view is that both of these countries are more kindly disposed towards the European Union than are the English — and that Ukip’s contempt for the European Parliament and its politicians is seen as another example
Channel 4 has commissioned a docu-drama that will imagine what life will be like for poor and oppressed ordinary British people under the first few months of a Ukip government. As you can imagine with Channel 4, this will undoubtedly be an exercise in the very quintessence of impartiality and fair-mindedness. They plan to run it just
An apology. A few weeks back, in my blog, I promised a regular series called ‘Fatuous Phrase of the Week’. Like so many publicly uttered promises, this one has failed to materialise. There has been no update to the Fatuous Phrase of the Week. This is because for the past two weeks I have been
The issue is not that Russell Brand seems to believe that 9/11 was some sort of joint effort between George W Bush and the bin Laden family – that’s sort of a given, no? The man is a drug-addled idiot with the geopolitical knowledge and awareness of a tub of ‘I Can’t Believe It’s Not
What sort of clothing do you wear when you go to the opera? I assume some of you do go to the opera, otherwise the Royal Opera House could be turned into a giant Wetherspoon’s pub. I have never been. Given a choice I would rather browse through a collection of photographs of Brooks Newmark
Not long to go now before a middle-aged Christian woman, Asia Bibi, is hanged in Pakistan for allegedly having said something disparaging about the prophet Mohammed, peace and blessings be upon him etc. Exactly what it was she said about old Mo’ isn’t entirely clear. Something a bit snippy, I would guess. She’d been arguing
Got Ebola yet? Early symptoms are very difficult to distinguish from either winter flu or, indeed, a particularly bad hangover. Bit feverish, aches and pains, sore throat and so on. Only when you start to bleed from the eyeballs should you worry a bit: that’s never happened before with Jack Daniels. It was the African
Every day, without fail, some celebrity or public figure will be quoted spouting a meaningless or disingenuous off-the-cuff cliché, to either big himself up or excuse some misdemeanour. Or simply to gull the public. From now on, then, we’ll be highlighting this sort of egregious shit in this brand! new! ‘Fatuous Phrase of the Week’
Nigel Farage – an apology. My suspicion had been that Ukip would not frighten the horses terribly in Heywood and Middleton. It is not great territory for them, after all. Yet they came within a few hundred votes of ousting Labour – a remarkable result, far more indicative than that in Clacton. And a calamitous
So it now seems pretty clear to me that we can no longer send women photographs of our genitals without worrying that we might be the subject of some horrible sting operation and consequently suffer public humiliation and possibly lose our jobs. One by one, the harmless little pleasures in life are being withdrawn from
I see that London is now the ‘childbirth capital of Europe’, with the highest birth-rate on the entire continent. London, and the UK generally, previously enjoyed very low birth-rates, among the lowest in Western Europe (together with the other law-abiding, sexually restrained, protestant people of the North West). The cause of this change is, of
An opinion poll to be published next week will reveal that Labour leader Ed Miliband is slightly less popular with the public than the vibrant Islamic State commander ‘Jihadi John’ and the late BBC disc jockey Jimmy Savile, and only two points more popular than His Infernal Majesty, Satan. The same poll will also put
[audioplayer src=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_2_Oct_2014_v4.mp3″ title=”Rod Liddle and Maria Miller discuss selfie obsession” startat=85] Listen [/audioplayer]So it now seems pretty clear to me that we can no longer send women photographs of our genitals without worrying that we might be the subject of some horrible sting operation and consequently suffer public humiliation and possibly lose our jobs. One
It is a horrible thing to say, but I suspect that sooner or later we will begin to get irritated by the John Cantlie Show. Mr Cantlie is the British photojournalist who is being held captive somewhere in Syria by the maniacal and barbarous Islamic State. He has delivered two video lectures of a geopolitical
Can anyone explain why there are so many dead rabbits lying around at the moment? I’ve found three in my garden, untouched by predators, and the lanes nearby are festooned with carcasses. Also, my dog twice nearly caught a rabbit, which was behaving in a very un-rabbit-like lethargic manner. I wondered if, at first, it
‘No Jews, No Jews!’ the children were told when they attempted to enter the Sports Direct store in Borehamwood, Hertfordshire. The two kids were identifiable as Jewish from their school uniforms. They were 11 years old. It was a security guard who refused to let them enter the shop and, as ever when the media reports
