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Rod Liddle
30 quotes
“Nothing terrifies or disgusts us more than paedophilia. It is fashionable to argue that the reason there seems to be so much of it about is that, actually, we're simply more aware of the problem than we used to be. Partly, this is true. But there may be more of it about anyway. The more profound the taboo, the greater will be the drive among some to transgress.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: One taboo gone, another rears its head", The Guardian (7 August 2002).
“This is just a guess, but maybe you are reading this as you wait on a station platform for a train that is 30 minutes late ... And you may, therefore - understandably - have forgotten why you voted Labour in 1997. But then you catch a glimpse of the forces supporting the Countryside Alliance: the public schools that laid on coaches; the fusty, belch-filled dining rooms of the London clubs that opened their doors, for the first time, to the protesters; the Prince of Wales and, of course, Camilla ... and suddenly, rather gloriously, it might be that you remember once again.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2002 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Marching back to Labour" The Guardian (25 September 2002).
“No matter how vile we may consider the sexual predilections of paedophiles, we should not be in the business of putting people in prison for simply looking at things. The law should be above the blind, howling, rage of Rebekah Wade's moronic vigilantes. But there is the whiff of Salem about it all.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Should it really be a crime to look at child pornography?", The Guardian (14 January 2003)
“We had this row and we were shouting at each other. I said, "Well, phone the police", and she said she would. I thought she was only joking. She didn't talk to them, just hung up. An hour later the coppers got here. She begged them to go away, but they wouldn't.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm so furious and upset about it [...] If I'd had enough spine I would have said no to the caution. They couldn't have charged me.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2005 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Oh dear, the telephone puts poor Rod on the hook again", The Independent on Sunday (8 May 2005)
“So — Harriet Harman, then. Would you? I mean after a few beers obviously, not while you were sober. The alcohol is sloshing around inside your brain, you’ve enjoyed a post-pub doner kebab together and maybe some grilled halloumi (a woman’s right to cheese) and she suggests, as you stand inside the frowsy minicab office: fancy going south, big boy? (I don’t know for sure that she’d use the term ‘big boy’; this is largely hypothetical stuff, you understand.)”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Her only policy, her only raison d'être, is a particularly vacuous feminism dating from a sixth-form common room in about 1973. Were this a serious commitment and grounded in reality, one might respect her for it and even agree. But it never is grounded in reality. It is the perpetual shrieking of an idiot.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Harriet Harman is either thick or criminally disingenuous" The Spectator (8 August 2009)
“I found the reaction shocking. And then I suppose I came to the conclusion - gradually - that I must have got it wrong. [...] I thought for a long time that in the context of The Spectator it was fine and that people who read The Spectator would know it was a joke and that there was a point behind the joke as well.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2009 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Referring to the reaction to his 2009 column about Harriet Harman (see above), cited from an interview by Viv Groskop "Rod Liddle: Maybe I was wrong to say I wouldn't sleep with Harriet Harman", Evening Standard (2 Octo…
“I went a year or so back. F***ing outrageous that you can't smoke in Auschwitz. I had to sneak round the back of the gas chambers for a crafty snout.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To tell you the truth I thought the "Auschwitz Experience" had been devalued by the people who run it to the point where I think it deserves taking the p*** out of ... it's set up as a politically correct tourist attraction, sort of Hitlerworld.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: As cited in "Liddle defends his Auschwitz 'humour'", The Jewish Chronicle (21 January 2010).
“What on earth is the government going to do about all these deranged northerners running amok shooting people? The more callous among you might well argue that it doesn't really matter, as these madmen are only shooting other northerners, and so it is therefore none of our business. Perhaps. But there is no guarantee that the next deranged northerner will not get on a train, if he can afford it, and start shooting at us, instead. This is the thing; you simply cannot tell with nutters, there is no logic to their mayhem.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2010 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Raoul Moat affair has uncovered a seething pit of northern madness", The Spectator (17 July 2010)
“Albanian gangsters with rice flails and Uzis, Ukrainian pimps with high-cheekboned floozies, Jamaicans with handguns, Somalis with knives — just some of the people enriching our lives.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“From Romford to Ruislip a myriad show Of cultural diversity — so mind how you go.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Opening and concluding lines of "A poem for the Met", The Spectator (18 February 2012).
“[George Galloway's comments on the alleged rape victims of Julian Assange in August 2012] [T]hose women were not "raped", he says of the accusations against Assange; calling that sort of thing rape diminishes the concept of rape — it was just "bad sexual etiquette".”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“As it happens, I think Galloway has a point. ... Meanwhile the ambassador who went a bit mental, Craig Murray, decided to go on Newsnight and actually NAME one of the women accusing Assange. What a radical act. He was of course slapped down by presenter Gavin Esler.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: George Galloway's fifty shades of rape" The Spectator (21 August 2012)
“I seriously contemplated being a teacher once upon a time, when I was lot younger. ... I never found out because the one thing stopping me from being a teacher was that I could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids. It seemed to me virtually impossible not to, and I was convinced that I'd be right in there, on day one. We're talking secondary school level here, by the way — and even then I don’t think I'd have dabbled much below year ten, as it is now called. I just thought we ought to clear that up early on.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“But for sure, what Mr Forrest did was wrong. I suspect — and it is only a guess — that thousands of teachers up and down the land conduct sexual relationships with their older charges and that in most cases no harm comes of it.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2012 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: A teenage girl, a maths teacher and a righteous tabloid fury" The Spectator (29 September 2012)
“As it happens, I disagree with Boris. Postboxes are bright red and bank robbers traditionally wear tights over their faces. I think they look more like Darth Vader. If you are an unpleasant person who enjoys rather macabre entertainment, wander down to Mile End and watch the women in the full burka trying to cross the A11. That's always good for a laugh. Almost as good is watching them take selfies. I mean, what's the point?”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The liberals believe this is another pitch from Boris [Johnson] to the right wing of the Conservative party and that the Islamophobia within the Conservative party is every bit as corrosive as the anti-Semitism within Labour. My own view is that there is not nearly enough Islamophobia within the Tory party.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Why Boris is wrong about burkas" The Spectator (11 August 2018)
“Anjem [Choudary] and I fervently agree on one important issue, though. He has urged British Islamists to leave the country and blow themselves up. Me too. Actually, I don't really mind if they don't leave the country, so long as they blow themselves up — somewhere a decent distance from where the rest of us live. Tower Hamlets, for example.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2018 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Legalise cannabis — and knife violence too — or keep fighting the war against crime" The Sunday Times (21 October 2018).
“If you have a student son or daughter who's thinking of voting, shove some high grade skunk under their bedroom door the day before the poll. You can lace the skunk with horse tranquilisers if you wish — do anything, just stop them voting. Pay them not to vote, or organise a rave with bangin' choons for polling day. It is your duty — and the kids will thank you for it in about ten years' time, when a semblance of sentience has established itself inside their heads.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“My own choice of election date would be a day when universities are closed and Muslims are forbidden to do anything on pain of hell, or something. There must be at least one day like that in the Muslim calendar, surely? That would deliver at least 40 seats to the Tories, I reckon.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2019 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: If you do one thing this election, stop your kids voting" The Spectator (2 November 2019)
“We will rue the day we all decided bullying was a bad thing. The consequence is that the inept, the imbecilic and the perpetually frit will hang on to their jobs and we will become a much less efficient country. By bullying I do not mean physically beating someone up and stealing their lunch money, which is what it used to mean when it had a proper meaning. I mean telling someone they're useless and deserve to be sacked, which is what bullying means today.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, who is 5ft 6in tall, has been accused of using bullying behaviour with regard to her civil servants. Nowhere near enough bullying behaviour in my book.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2020 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: In defence of Priti Patel" The Spectator (29 February 2020)
“A small yield nuclear weapon, such as the American W89, dropped on Glastonbury in late June would immediately remove from our country almost everybody who is hugely annoying. You would see a marked reduction in the keffiyeh klan, for a start, and all those middle-class Extinction Rebellion protestors would find, in a nanosecond, that their rebellion was pointless, because extinction had arrived even more summarily than they expected. Go on, glue yourselves to that, Poppy and Oliver.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) said by 2026 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I am not saying that we should do this, of course – it would be a horrible, psychopathic thing to do. I am merely hypothesising, in a slightly wistful kinda way.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2025 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: And now let’s bomb Glastonbury", The Spectator (3 July 2025)
“One of the few remaining unalloyed pleasures of motoring — running over cats — may soon become problematic if a petition passes 100,000 signatures. Campaigners are demanding that motorists should be forced to stop and report a "collision" with a cat, rather than just tooting the horn triumphantly and driving on. OK, I do not really think it is a good idea to run over cats if one can help it.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2026 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Ignore the howls, the East Mids are perfect for nuclear experiments: Cats don’t need more protection", The Sunday Times (6 June 2026).
“[On an exclusive organisation for Swingers based in South-East England] Believe me, [[w:Dougie Smith|[Dougie] Smith]] and his fellow Fever workers are not remotely embarrassed by their line of employment. They are positively evangelistic about it – and not simply for financial reasons. A couple who choose to attend a Fever Party will dissolve the sexual tension and emotional jealousy which bedevils and destroys so many relationships. That insane craving for sexual différence ... can be a most malign force: it breaks up families, it costs the Exchequer lots of money, it causes havoc. Why not have it rigorously assuaged in a pleasant, controlled environment with other, like-minded people?”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2003 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Back to Basic Instincts", The Spectator (28 June 2003)
“According to her allies, Priti Patel is about to "go off like a shotgun", which should keep us all entertained a while longer, as long as the shotgun is this time pointed in the right direction, rather than at her own head. Someone tell the woman: turn the gun around; those two holes you’re staring at are where the pellets come out. Pull the trigger now and you'll be a far less Priti Patel. I suppose, pointed in the right direction, a shotgun might do a bit of good. Theresa May's government resembles a dog with a broken back, dragging its tail in the sea; you shield your eyes from watching its dying spasms, block your ears from the pitiful whining, yearning that it might soon be put out of its misery.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2017 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: International aid is a white elephant. I'd have sacked Priti for not putting it down" The Sunday Times (12 November 2017)
“Exciting news from Durham University, which is helping its students to become "sex workers". This noble institution is offering two courses in the various forms of harlotry. My only concern is that at present they do not actually offer an academic qualification in these subjects — at the very least an undergraduate degree in, say, Practical Whoring. Perhaps followed by an MA in Deconstructing the Topless Hand-Shandy1897-1913. Such courses would probably result in more lucrative career opportunities than many of the more traditional subjects which students pay through the nose to study. I am attending a dinner at Durham University next month and fervently hope that some of the ambitious young ladies on these courses will be in attendance.”
Rod Liddle (1960–2026) first seen 2021 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Prostitutes are stigmatised because their trade is filthy", The Spectator (20 November 2021)