Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator.
As if the poor Egyptians didn’t have enough on their plate, into the arena marches the man to sort it all out, the world’s ‘Middle East Envoy’, Tony Blair. Lucky world. Give the man his due, the Middle East is a monumentally fractious, fissiparous, disputatious neck of the woods and they all seem to hate
This all looks terribly good fun, don’t you think? Spectacular towers which will make wonderful bonfires: it must have taken them ages. My only caveat is that they are all in Northern Ireland. Is there no enterprising alliance over here which might do something similar to celebrate the glorious military success of King William of
I think it was the arrival into the debate of those Blairite ghosts Mandelson and Reid which helped me make my mind up. Somehow, Ed Miliband has been coerced into taking on the Unite union on the grounds that they are doing shady business on the matter of selecting candidates. Mandelson and Reid are both
Someone alert the World Wildlife Fund and Sir David Attenborough. Yet another indigenous British creature is facing extinction, its ranks denuded to almost nothing by arrogant human behaviour. In particular the arrogant behaviour of women. Yes, this is the sad story of pubic lice – a familiar tale of wilful habitat destruction. Researchers say the
It is very lucky for the BBC that Channel 4 exists. Whatever imbecilic, supposedly attention-grabbing trash the BBC commissions, there will always be its commercial rival around to commission something still more imbecilic, still more trashy. Such as — if you remember — ‘Wank Week’, a series exploring the manifest delights of masturbation. Having gained sufficient exposure with
Lovely to see Lord Tebbit at The Spectator summer party. I reminded him that he had once written a short letter to me, which I still cherish. Back when I was editor of the BBC Today programme I had written to lots of famous people to get their views about religious belief and faith, for
I suppose this will seem churlish, but I’d just like to add my support to the grime rapper Wiley who, upon arriving at the Glastonbury festival, tweeted to Michael Eavis: ‘Fuck you and your farm.’ I’m not sure what motivated this annoyance but credit where it’s due, it’s roughly what I’ve felt about this bloated
A small group of MPs have put their heads above the parapet in a brave and commendable fashion by demanding that they and their colleagues should not receive large pay rises. My own view is that MPs should be paid substantially more than what they currently receive, not least because it might improve the intake
A bunch of back bench Conservative MPs have won the right to present to parliament, via the almost pointless conduit of private members bills, a sort of alternative manifesto. A fairly uncameroonie alternative Queen’s Speech. The MPs in question include Peter Bone and Philip Hollobone, both of whom sound a little as though they had
From which of the actors engaged in the thoroughly entertaining case of Edward Snowden has come the biggest spewing-out of cant, do you reckon? Edward himself? The Guardian? Or the Yanks or -Chinese? Edward was a fairly low-level CIA technical contractor in Hawaii when he released to the world details of his government’s clandestine electronic
I see that they have gone for Jane Austen as the face of the new ten pound note, after a long and bitter row. I find it incredible that they decided not to take the chance to show a true commitment to multicultural diversity and have instead chosen some boring dead white woman. I wrote
Something very odd is going to happen in your newspapers and on your television screens, perhaps this week, perhaps not. Soon, anyway. It looks likely that poor old Nelson Mandela is on his last legs and will very soon expire. As soon as he does, just you watch. You will hear of nothing else for
Which television chef would you most like to see throttled in a restaurant? I have to say, Nigella Lawson would be well down the list for me, as I’ve always rather liked her. It’s true that some of her recipes are a little precious, especially all that fairy cake stuff, but surely not to the
The Met Office is apparently holding a ‘crisis meeting’ today to discuss why Britain’s weather refuses to behave itself these days. No sooner had the camp, pirouetting, forecasters told us that we were in for weeks and weeks of gale force winds and torrential rain, stretching into July, better wear your wellies etc, than the
A scientific study has revealed that the faces of Lego characters are no longer so mindlessly happy as they once were. This is an important thing to know. ‘Put the cancer cure stuff on hold for a while, will you – I’m deeply interested in the facial expressions of plastic toys.’ Anyway, once upon a
There’s an Islamic school in Birmingham which is very highly regarded. It’s called Darul Uloom — the same name as the school in Chislehurst which was recently the subject of an arson attack. In fact, that’s how I stumbled across it. Anyway, Darul Uloom in Birmingham is a good school not only academically, but also for
Well done to the BBC Today programme’s Sarah Montague for not screaming abuse at Tommy Robinson, the English Defence League leader, when she interviewed him this morning. It seems that many wanted her simply to shriek abuse at the man – and now she is being criticised for having been too lax. Being aggressive with
Can I just share with you my satisfaction that the CIA has access to my emails and all the social media sites I visit from time to time? This has been a big story in the liberal press: US fascist spooks can access loads of details about you through the online stuff you’ve been doing.
It must be boring for you too, returning to the same complaint, over and over again. Report on the BBC’s 10 O’Clock News about the trouble in Turkey. Not a single mention, in the three minutes, of the words Islam, or Muslim, or Islamification. You had to infer everything. Without prior knowledge of what was
It’s sleaze time again in Westminster. A few good stings by the broadcasters and the press and we see his lordship ‘Nuclear’ Jack Cunningham coining it by asking for £12,000 per month to make use of his extensive contacts and also his ability to get a table on the terrace of the Lords. £12,000 a
