Writer and broadcaster Rod Liddle, a prominent columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun, has died after a short illness.
Liddle, whose provocative style attracted both praise and criticism, also wrote for the Spectator magazine and earlier in his career edited BBC Radio ۴’s Today programme. He was ۶۶.
While Liddle worked as a speechwriter for the Labour party in the ۱۹۸۰s, his later writing often critiqued and criticised the left.
Tributes to Liddle were immediately paid by Piers Morgan, former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil and BBC Today presenter Justin Webb, who described Liddle as brilliant, kind and funny.
David Yelland, a former editor of the Sun, said Liddle “morphed into a brilliant and gifted writer who I could rarely agree with but always turned to first”.
“It was because he was so talented he was able to behave so badly and write so (it has to said) abhorrently on many occasions,” he said. “And he knew this. It was his essence. RIP Rod.”
Liddle died at the James Cook university hospital in Middlesbrough on Sunday evening. His children, Wilder, Tyler and Emmy, said in a statement: “We’re all very saddened and shocked at the sudden passing of our wonderful father.
“He raised us much as you might imagine, to be inquisitive, brave and always humorous. Even in hospital in the last few weeks, he consistently held the room and never let the awful situation show.
“He has left a legacy that we are all incredibly proud of, he will always be our guide on how to live an extraordinary life.”
Liddle’s irreverent style meant he was no stranger to controversy. In ۲۰۱۰, he became the first blogger to be censured by the former Press Complaints Commission for incorrectly stating in a Spectator piece that the “overwhelming majority” of violent crime in London was carried out by young African-Caribbean men.
Liddle left as editor of the BBC’s Today programme, its flagship political show in ۲۰۰۲. At the time, it was reported that his departure followed a disagreement with the BBC’s then director general, Greg Dyke, about a regular column he wrote for the Guardian.
It followed a column in which Liddle had criticised Countryside Alliance marchers as “Mill on the Floss extras” and “those who own the countryside, or run it, together with a forelock-tugging menagerie of their better-paid servants”.
It was during his tenure at Today that Liddle hired Andrew Gilligan, the journalist whose ۲۰۰۳ report claimed the UK government had “sexed up” its dossier on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Liddle left the BBC before Gilligan’s report was broadcast.
Liddle also presented a programme about infidelity, arguing that men were genetically pre-programmed to be unfaithful. His former wife had written about his adultery in a series of newspaper features.
Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News UK, which publishes both the Sunday Times and the Sun, said everyone at the company had been “deeply shocked and saddened” to learn of his sudden death.
“Rod was an inimitable journalistic force, brilliant, provocative and immensely talented, whose sharp wit and uncompromising voice graced our pages and airwaves for decades,” she said. “He challenged conventional thinking and left an indelible mark on British journalism.”
Ben Taylor, editor of the Sunday Times, said: “Rod Liddle had a wonderful way with words and used his unique talent to speak for the readers, highlighting the cant and absurdity that bedevils modern life. He was also supremely entertaining and for years his column was the first that many turned to every Sunday. We will miss him desperately.”
Victoria Newton, editor-in-chief of the Sun, said: “A champion of press freedom, no topic was off-limits, and his writing – as funny as it was excoriating – was simply exceptional. A terrific observer of the frailties of our political class, he will be remembered for his razor sharp wit and for his huge intellect.”
