Rod Liddle Has Died. Here He Is in His Own Words

The prolific journalist, who passed away on Sunday, urged Muslims to ‘blow themselves up’, joked about ‘trying to shag’ children and mocked an MP who spoke about being a victim of domestic violence.

Rod Liddle talking to protestors outside the Dolce & Gabbana store on Old Bond Street, London, following their comments on same-sex families. Photo by Yui Mok/PA Images via Getty Images

Rod Liddle, journalist and broadcaster, has died aged 66 after a short illness. He was a columnist for the Sun, Sunday Times and Spectator, a host on Times Radio and the former editor of BBC Radio 4’s flagship ‘Today’ programme.

The tributes soon flooded in. His editor at the Spectator, Michael Gove, called him “a journalist of genius” who, “in the tradition of Swift, Cobbett and Orwell, was a satirist who found society’s most sensitive spots and made merciless fun of our follies.”

In the Telegraph, he was praised for taking on “all-comers, from the commissars of correctness in the broadcast media to the panjandrums of the race-relations industry and the increasingly strident advocates of transgender rights”. Reform MP Robert Jenrick posted, “Rod Liddle said the unsayable truth years before anyone else would come close.”

Talking on Times Radio, Trevor Phillips had one word to describe those who thought Liddle racist: “Idiots.”

So, here he is, Rod Liddle, in his own, ahem, words. Judge for yourself.

On Muslims

“Time for a quick update on what the Muslim savages are up to.” (The Spectator, November 19, 2009)