Rod Liddle who died a few days ago has been the subject to numerous eulogies, not least in the Spectator which he wrote for, and also now in the Sunday Times (9th August 2026).
Michael Gove compared Liddle’s writing to Orwell and Swift, a great commentator and satirist. The Sunday Times has republished some of his work for the paper, so you can judge for yourself.
The Guardian’s Obituary provides a corrective
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/aug/04/rod-liddle-obituary?CMP=share_btn_url
Zoe Williams has also written in the Guardian
For eulogies Boris Johnson (on Twitter obviously) has posted this:
Heartsick at the death of Rod Liddle – an outrageously funny and gifted writer with a beautiful conversational style. He had a unique talent for finding the thing that was obviously true but supposedly unsayable and then saying it with such panache as to give the maximum possible offence – and to all the right people. Spectator readers absolutely loved him.
Michael Gove, The Spectator’s editor, said: “Rod Liddle was a journalist of genius. In the tradition of Swift, Cobbett and Orwell, he was a satirist who found society’s most sensitive spots and made merciless fun of our follies.
Peter Oborne’s opposing view
Rod Liddle played the politics of hatred – we should be honest about his legacy | Middle East Eye
Meirion Jones who was at Radio 4 Today with Liddle from 1989 (Jones later worked on Newsnight) noted on Twitter that Liddle had become a second rate Jeremy Clarkson. Clarkson paid tribute to his student in the Sunday Times (9th August).
Robin Lustig, former presenter of the World Tonight, who worked with Liddle at the BBC noted on his Substack that Liddle ‘never outgrew his days as a child who delighted in telling fart jokes’.
When I knew Liddle on Teesside in the second half of the 1970s, he was then a socialist punk, I recall him as personable and amiable. Looking at the many comments after his death was reported from those who knew him more recently, it seems that on occasion he retained those elements of his character. Clearly also on many occasions he did not…
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