Brave, witty, populist and mischievous… Rod Liddle was a rebel genius who could reduce someone to rubble in 15 words

SCOTLAND were a man down and losing 4-0 to Germany when my phone pinged, inside Munich’s Allianz Arena, and a legend appeared.“Rod Liddle.” Probably not the exact person I wanted to hear from at that moment, but I read the message anyway and started laughing. Ally Ross pays tribute to pal Rod Liddle and recalls his ‘devastation’ to learn he was 70 per cent Scottish Rod was a Zen master at flagging up human folly, whether it was cultural, ­political, or economic Credit: Alamy “Mate, I still believe in you. I STILL BELIEVE.” I started chuckling so much, in fact, that a fellow Scotland supporter demanded to know what was so funny. Sign up for The Sun newsletter Thank you! So I showed him the message and he started laughing as well.Rod had that effect on people. He was a Zen master at flagging up human folly, whether it was cultural, ­political, economic or spending £770 to watch your beloved football team get spanked 5-1 at the 2024 Euros. Thanks to our burgeoning friendship, I also knew very well, by that point, there was no malice to Rod’s words or any higher purpose than comedy when he ­subsequently told Spectator readers he was “devastated” to discover a DNA test had shown he was nearly 70 per cent Scottish. The only consolation, for Rod, apparently being that: “Henceforth I shall expect everybody else in England to subsidise me through their taxes while simultaneously demanding total independence from them.” I was so confident of his goodwill, in fact, I took some of my Tartan Army mates to meet Rod at one of the curry nights we held regularly with his great friend and fellow journalist Mick Hume, from online website Spiked. It was a riotous success built, I’d like to think, on some form of mutual respect. And a lot of alcohol. Most read in The Sun Ally Ross fondly remembers meet-ups with Rod Liddle and fellow journalist Mick Hume Credit: Supplied We all really liked Rod because he was funny, kind, fascinating and much gentler than anyone expected Credit: Alamy Rod admired us because we’d just been to Kazakhstan to see Scotland lose 3-0, which appealed to the Millwall-supporting masochist in the man. And we all really liked Rod because he was funny, kind, fascinating and much gentler than anyone expected, with a ­generous Christian spirit and a surprising number of insecurities about his ­astonishing talents. He’d no need to have concerns, of course. Once free of the BBC straitjacket and able to write what he actually thought about the self-righteous liberal London Left, Rod very quickly established himself, at The Sunday Times, Spectator and The Sun, as one of the greatest and most ­versatile columnists who’s ever lived. He was alarmingly prolific as well and (full disclosure) I was slightly unnerved when he told me, not long after lockdown lifted, that he was going to become The Sunday Times’ TV critic. I’ve seen them come and go, of course and know that it takes most TV critics about two years just to stop being awful. Not Rod. A natural God-given talent, like his ­predecessor, AA Gill, meant he was ­brilliant immediately. His gift lay also in the fact Rod had barely an ounce of pretension about him and no qualms about being populist. Indeed, when he was put on the spot, he listed his two favourite TV programmes of all time as Fawlty Towers and David Lammy’s epic failure on Celebrity Mastermind, where he identified “Marie Antoinette” as “The Polish woman who discovered radium” and “Henry VII” as Henry VIII’s successor. Ally recalls how Rod’s message during Scotland’s 5-1 defeat to Germany at Euro 2024 raised a smile Credit: Getty Rod would be unforgiving with words and once had a withering put down for Greta Thunberg Credit: Getty He referenced it endlessly, in columns as well. And, like anything Rod wrote at length, it had to be read at least twice, just so you could savour the full savagery. The true mark of Rod’s genius, though, which set him apart from everyone else, I think, was the fact he could reduce ­someone to rubble in less than 15 words. It’s become part of Spectator folklore that Rod broke the magazine’s online ­traffic records with a single mischievous question: “I hear Owen Jones was on Question Time, last night. Was he any good . . . ?” He also once reviewed a Justin Bieber album with the verdict: “The rancid meanderings of a long spent w**kpuffin.” My own favourite, however, was the three-word description he attached to environmentalist Greta Thunberg. “Swedish doom goblin.” It’s so perfect my friends use “Swedish doom goblin” as a short-cut to laughter if a night in the pub ever feels like it’s flagging. The trouble with devotion to a columnist as talented and addictive as Rod, though, is it’s never good news when they’re absent for a long period. Rod was missing before I went to this year’s World Cup and worryingly, still hadn’t reappeared by the time I returned. Then came the worst news of all. There is, ­naturally, some comfort to be had from the outpouring of love displayed by ­readers of The Sun, The Spectator and The Sunday Times in response to Rod’s death, earlier this week. He would also, I think, have been beside himself with glee at the holier-than-thou obituaries delivered, in self-consciously disapproving style, by a pair of Guardian hacks. Empty words which, apart from probably confirming all of his darkest thoughts about humourless left-wing ­journalists, said nothing about the great man other than the fact his glorious anti-woke prose will live free of charge, inside their heads, from now until kingdom come. His death, though, has left an unimaginable chasm in the lives of his friends and family, who are in all our thoughts, and an endless void in the media where, in normal circumstances, I’d have been craving to read his thoughts on the DEI plagiarism scandal that’s engulfed ­Professor Jason Arday and Cambridge University this week. On a personal level, there’s also eternal regret that I didn’t see my mate before he passed. Although I did receive a message from Mick Hume that Rod wanted me to know he had been greatly cheered by Scotland’s abject performance at the World Cup. It made me laugh, of course. But I still believe, Rod. I STILL BELIEVE. Comment now