The wit, wisdom and words of Rod Liddle

But before we do, Allison, you wrote a fabulous tribute to Rod in The Telegraph earlier this week, link in the show notes to this episode, and I think it's fair to say you were pretty fond of him.

It's hard not to be fond of him, Liam.

He was an extraordinary character, extremely learned, wore his learning very lightly.

He was extremely good at jokes, as everybody knows.

When I came to write that piece, I thought underneath it all, Rod Liddle was a, a moralist.

He cared.

Now, a lot of people in our trade, they don't really care, but Rod cared, and I think what he cared about was he was angry with the establishment for having m- made the lives of ordinary people a lot worse, whether it was through immigration or cost of living.

He chose to spend a lot of his time in his native Northeast, where, as you say, on Sunday night, he sadly died in a, in a hospital in Middlesbrough.

So he was this incredibly vivid and irreverent character, and when our friend actually, Sophie Winkleman, rang me early on Monday morning to say, "Brace yourself for some very sad news," and I kind of thought because he'd been absent for several weeks from his perches in The Spectator and The Sunday Times and The Sun and indeed, uh, Times Radio, where he had a very popular show on Saturday mornings, and I thought...

I kept thinking, look, if you saw the byline Rod Liddle, you knew you were in for treat, you know?

[laughs] Strap yourself in.

[laughs]

Strap yourself in.

But there was gonna be some excoriating wit, wasn't there? There was gonna be some perfectly judged send-up of, you know, particular...

I can't say the rude word, tragically, on Planet Normal, but someone said, "Why do you call them Bien Pensant?" [laughs] He said, "It's 'cause I can't call them the C word"

[laughs]

Which was so Rod, right? And as you said, Liam, it's incredible to think that Rod Liddle was the editor of Radio 4's Today program, which, you know, uh, incredible, and he was brilliant at that job.

In fact, he increased the listenership, as it were, by 40%.

Yeah.

'Cause he hired real reporters who got real stories and, and broke real news, and people listened.

But he did say, actually, I was looking back at some of the things, and it was so interesting 'cause he came subsequently, didn't he, to rail against the BBC and the sort of unanimity of views which he came to satirize, and he said that they thought the same about the ERM.

They all thought they should join the ERM back in the day.

The Exchange Rate Mechanism, the predecessor of the euro.

Crime, race, immigration, foreign affairs.

The BBC doesn't reflect the views of the population outside this golden crescent of London from which we're ruled.

But before we do, Allison, you wrote a fabulous tribute to Rod in The Telegraph earlier this week, link in the show notes to this episode, and I think it's fair to say you were pretty fond of him.

It's hard not to be fond of him, Liam.

He was an extraordinary character, extremely learned, wore his learning very lightly.

He was extremely good at jokes, as everybody knows.

When I came to write that piece, I thought underneath it all, Rod Liddle was a, a moralist.

He cared.

Now, a lot of people in our trade, they don't really care, but Rod cared, and I think what he cared about was he was angry with the establishment for having m- made the lives of ordinary people a lot worse, whether it was through immigration or cost of living.

He chose to spend a lot of his time in his native Northeast, where, as you say, on Sunday night, he sadly died in a, in a hospital in Middlesbrough.

So he was this incredibly vivid and irreverent character, and when our friend actually, Sophie Winkleman, rang me early on Monday morning to say, "Brace yourself for some very sad news," and I kind of thought because he'd been absent for several weeks from his perches in The Spectator and The Sunday Times and The Sun and indeed, uh, Times Radio, where he had a very popular show on Saturday mornings, and I thought...

I kept thinking, look, if you saw the byline Rod Liddle, you knew you were in for treat, you know?

[laughs] Strap yourself in.

[laughs]

Strap yourself in.

But there was gonna be some excoriating wit, wasn't there? There was gonna be some perfectly judged send-up of, you know, particular...

I can't say the rude word, tragically, on Planet Normal, but someone said, "Why do you call them Bien Pensant?" [laughs] He said, "It's 'cause I can't call them the C word"

[laughs]

Which was so Rod, right? And as you said, Liam, it's incredible to think that Rod Liddle was the editor of Radio 4's Today program, which, you know, uh, incredible, and he was brilliant at that job.

In fact, he increased the listenership, as it were, by 40%.

Yeah.

'Cause he hired real reporters who got real stories and, and broke real news, and people listened.

But he did say, actually, I was looking back at some of the things, and it was so interesting 'cause he came subsequently, didn't he, to rail against the BBC and the sort of unanimity of views which he came to satirize, and he said that they thought the same about the ERM.

They all thought they should join the ERM back in the day.

The Exchange Rate Mechanism, the predecessor of the euro.

Crime, race, immigration, foreign affairs.

The BBC doesn't reflect the views of the population outside this golden crescent of London from which we're ruled.