Rod Liddle

Roderick Edwin Liddle was born on 1 April 1960 in Sidcup, Kent, into a church-going family whose roots ran deep in the north-east of England. His father Edwin, an Inland Revenue clerk descended from a railway family, and his mother Margaret, who worked for the Department of Health and Social Security, raised Rod in a household where plain dealing and hard work were the prevailing values. When he was eight, the family moved to Nunthorpe, near Middlesbrough — a relocation that would shape his character and political instincts for life. At Laurence Jackson comprehensive school and Prior Pursglove sixth form college, he discovered punk music, briefly joined the Socialist Workers Party, and won a national essay prize at fifteen. Even then, he had things to say and was determined to say them. He began his career as a journalist at the South Wales Echo in 1979, covering news and rock music before moving to London to study social psychology at the London School of Economics while working as a researcher for the Labour Party. In the late 1980s he joined the BBC as a trainee producer, cutting his teeth across Radio 4's most demanding current-affairs programmes — PM, World at One, and World This Weekend. By 1998 he had been appointed editor of the Today programme, a role he held until 2002. Thin as a rake, with artfully chaotic hair and the only earring in the office, he was nicknamed "Rod the Mod" by his colleagues. Under his editorship, Today became more aggressive, more investigative, and more listened-to than it had ever been. After leaving the BBC, Liddle became arguably the most provocative and celebrated columnist of his generation. For more than two decades he wrote for The Spectator — where he served as associate editor — The Sunday Times, and The Sun, wielding a gift for invective softened by ebullient satirical humour. He published several books, including the semi-autobiographical Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014) and The Great Betrayal (2019), presented television documentaries, performed to sell-out crowds at the London Palladium, and in 2024 stood as a Social Democratic Party candidate in Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland. He was, in person, kind and gentle — a fact that surprised many who knew only his writing. Rod Liddle died on 2 September 2026 at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough after a short illness, aged 66. He was survived by his wife Alicia and his three children, Tyler, Wilder, and Emmy. He leaves behind a readership that mourned him with the ferocity he deserved.