Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle is associate editor of The Spectator. He writes a weekly column in the magazine, as well as contributing to The Sunday Times and The Sun.

The sound of pop eating itself and throwing up: A.G. Cook’s Apple reviewed

3 October 2020 9:00 am

Grade: A The future, then. The sound of pop eating itself, throwing up into a bag and then getting a…

More mimsy soft rock from Cat Stevens: Tea for the Tillerman 2 reviewed

26 September 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B– Time has been kind to Cat Stevens’s reputation — his estrangement from the music business and rad BAME…

Time for me to be more assertive

26 September 2020 9:00 am

In the light of recent articles in The Spectator, I think it is vital I should point out here and…

JK Rowling’s fundamental mistake

19 September 2020 9:00 am

I had my first doubts about Lord Hall, the former director-general of the BBC, when he addressed a group of…

Virtuosic but slight – always prog’s problem: The Pineapple Thief's latest reviewed

19 September 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B– Of all the various subdivisions in that wheezing and crippled phenomenon that we call rock music, prog has…

Falsehoods are running amok

12 September 2020 9:00 am

I don’t know how much of a shock this will come to you as — perhaps none, because you are…

How a lie becomes truth

5 September 2020 9:00 am

Teachers were told to exclude children who made ‘inappropriate’ jokes about Covid when they returned to school this week. These…

Our Belarusian blind spot

29 August 2020 9:00 am

I’d always rather liked the Finns, until I came across the conductor Dalia Stasevska. When I asked my mother what…

Brits aren’t idiotic – but our institutions are

22 August 2020 9:00 am

Two headlines from the same news-paper, less than three weeks apart. So, the Guardian on 31 July: ‘The Guardian view…

My pronouncement on the BBC

15 August 2020 9:00 am

Radio 4 recently ran an adaptation of Albert Camus’s The Plague in which the protagonist, Dr Bernard Rieux, was transformed…

There's scarcely a dull track: Deep Purple's Whoosh! reviewed

15 August 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Less deep purple than a pleasant mauve. Ageing headbangers will note a lack of the freneticism that distinguished…

We are living in a post-truth society

8 August 2020 9:00 am

Activists wish to change the name of a school in north London because it is named after a road which…

Fine tunes and spacey, quiet grandeur: Taylor Swift’s Folklore reviewed

1 August 2020 9:00 am

Grade: A- This is worrying — like listening to a speech by David Lammy and finding yourself, against your better…

Fat-shaming didn’t do me any harm

1 August 2020 9:00 am

One of the genuine pleasures I always take in arriving back in the north-east after being in London is that…

Young people have never paid attention to the BBC

25 July 2020 9:00 am

In January, the director-general of the BBC, Lord Hall of Birkenhead, announced that the corporation intended to shift away from…

Why I will wear a face mask

18 July 2020 9:00 am

We are enjoined by certain experts to wear face masks while having sexual intercourse. No change there, then, for me.…

When is a democracy not a democracy?

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Displaying the pristine neutrality that has made her such a popular figure, Newsnight’s Emily Maitlis apparently tweeted the following last…

Ranges from the slight to the first-rate: Neil Young’s Homegrown reviewed

11 July 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Neil Young has been mining his own past very profitably for a long time now, disinterring a seemingly…

To understand the past, you need to inhabit it for a while

4 July 2020 9:00 am

‘It’s no go my honey love, it’s no go my poppet; Work your hands from day to day, the winds…

The police have become too politicised to function

27 June 2020 9:00 am

Forces have become too politicised to function

Contains the loveliest new song I've heard in decades: Bob Dylan's new album reviewed

27 June 2020 9:00 am

Grade: A ‘Rough’ in terms of the mostly spoken vocals, but only ‘rowdy’ if you’re approaching your 80th birthday, which…

Does anyone think Boris has handled this well?

20 June 2020 9:00 am

I don’t know what’s happened to our football hooligans. The modern malaise, I suppose. A gradual descent into ineffectuality. Back…

A rabbi stabbed, but no hate crime?

14 June 2020 7:39 am

A mystery has occurred. In The Affluent People’s Republic of North London, a rabbi was stabbed on the street multiple…

The closing down of debate worries me most

13 June 2020 9:00 am

The Eastern Orthodox Church has decided that yoga is incompatible with Christianity. This is an enormous problem for me, as…

Skates on the edge of parody: The 1975's Notes on a Conditional Form reviewed

6 June 2020 9:00 am

Grade: B+ Just what you wanted. An opening track that matches banal piano noodling to an address by Greta Thunberg.…