The reaction in some (primarily media and political) circles to the death of professional arsehole Rod Liddle has been to invoke the old saw, don’t speak ill of the dead. But there’s a difference between keeping your mouth shut so a distant cousin doesn’t punch you at your gran’s funeral and reminding people of the many sins someone horrendous has committed.
Rod Liddle was a mediocre writer, horrifically racist, bigoted against pretty much any marginalised group you can imagine and a woman-beater, cautioned by police for punching his 20-weeks-pregnant girlfriend in the stomach. He was a defender of child sexual abuse material, mused that he couldn’t be a teacher because he’d want to fuck the children, used his platform to demonise some of the world’s most vulnerable people, and the world is a better place without him.
The Times, well aware of all the above but happy to employ him for many years, today called him a “playful genius”. And some of the UK’s highest-profile anti-trans “defenders of women and girls”, including Julie Bindel, Kathleen Stock and Rosie Duffield, have heaped praise on the paedophile-defending, woman-beating misogynist because of course, he was a transphobe too.
Media critic Mic Wright pulls no punches:
Subject yourself to Liddle’s body of work and you’ll find someone who never let go of the childish inclination to insult and degrade. He is so beloved of people on this side because he said all the unpleasant things they are too cowardly to say in public. He may have been delightful to his friends but he should be judged on what he put out into the world and that was bile by the bucketload.
…He maintained columns in The Sun, The Spectator, and The Sunday Times precisely because he was a voice for the party line — the party of Murdoch that never needs to seek re-election. The tributes to Liddle illustrate just how much of their audience most of the British media hold in total contempt.