Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle (born Roderick E.L. Liddle 1960, Sidcup) is a British journalist best known for his term as editor of BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

Career

Liddle was born in South London but brought up in Nunthorpe, Yorkshire. He was educated at Laurence Jackson comprehensive school in Guisborough (also Yorkshire), and while there formed a punk band called "Dangerbird" with some friends. He attended the London School of Economics. Liddle was a member of the Socialist Workers Party in his youth but worked between 1983 and 1987 for the Labour Party Shadow Cabinet. He then returned to journalism.

His early journalistic experience was with the South Wales Echo in Cardiff where he was a general news reporter and, for a time, the rock and pop writer. Liddle was appointed editor of the Today programme in 1998, having previously been deputy editor. Today had an unrivalled reputation for its political interviews, but Liddle tried - with considerable success - to improve the programme's investigative journalism, attempting to 'break' new stories. To this end he hired journalists from outside the BBC. Among the most controversial was Andrew Gilligan, who joined from the Sunday Telegraph in 1999. Gilligan's 29 May 2003 report on Today began a chain of events that led to the Hutton inquiry. Gilligan's reporting was criticized by Lord Hutton in his report and by a BBC Panorama documentary, though subsequent developments have shown that the general substance of the allegations made in the report - though not the crucial allegation that the government "probably knew" the 45 minute claim "was wrong" - were true.

Under Liddle's editorship Today won a number of UK radio awards - a Sony Silver in 2002 for reports by Barnie Choudhury and Mike Thomson into the causes of race riots in the north of England; a Sony Bronze in 2003 for an investigation by Angus Stickler into paedophile priests; and an Amnesty International Media Award in 2003 for Gilligan's investigation into the sale of illegal landmines - an investigation that attracted a lengthy legal action. The programme's audience, which had fallen steadily below 6m under his editorship, was boosted in 2001 by the events of 9/11 and after he left was maintained consistently above 6m.

While editor of the Today programme, Liddle wrote a column for The Guardian newspaper. On September 25, 2002, he titled his column 'Marching back to Labour': making reference to a march organized by the Countryside Alliance in defence of fox hunting, Liddle wrote that readers may have forgotten why "you" voted Labour but would remember once they saw the people campaigning to save hunting.

The BBC considered this breached his commitments as an editor and gave Liddle an ultimatum either to end his column or resign. Liddle resigned on 30 September 2002. With Kate Silverton he went on to present BBC2 political show Weekend, BBC4's The Talk Show. He also continued to write for The Guardian, wrote a critically acclaimed book of short stories entitled Too Beautiful for You, became a team captain on Call My Bluff and also took a job as Associate Editor at The Spectator. He now also writes a weekly column for The Sunday Times.

He defended Andrew Gilligan in the media during the Hutton inquiry.

In 2004 his personal life was the subject of much comment when he cut short his honeymoon to return to London so he could be with his girlfriend Alicia Monckton (a receptionist at The Spectator); his marriage ended in a swift divorce. His philandering was dramatized in Toby Young's play Who's The Daddy?. Some opinions in his columns have sometimes brought controversy: he once said that cigarettes were not as bad for you as doctors and nurses, and that he thought Geordies were like "monkeys and morons".

Two Channel 4 television programmes presented by Liddle in 2006 attracted a great deal of controversy. In The New Fundamentalists, a programme in the Dispatches strand, Liddle - who attends a Church of England church - condemned the rise of evangelicalism and/or Christian fundamentalism in Britain, especially the anti-Darwinian influence of such beliefs in faith schools; and criticised the social teaching and cultural influence of this strand of Christianity. In The Trouble with Atheism, Liddle argued that atheists can be as dogmatic and intolerant as the adherents of religion. "History has shown us," he says, "that it’s not religion that’s the problem, but any system of thought that insists that one group of people are inviolably in the right, whereas the others are in the wrong and must somehow be punished." Liddle argues, for example, that eugenic policies are the logical consequence of dogmatic adherence to Darwinism.

On Easter Monday, he presented a two-hour long theological documentary called The Bible Revolution where he looks back in history to William Tyndale's translation of the Bible in English and the effect this had upon the English language..

On 21st May 2007 he presented an hour long documentary entitled, Battle for the Holy Land: Love Thy Neighbour concerning the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. In the documentary Liddle visited Bethlehem, Hebron and the Israeli settlement of Tekoa. Liddle sought to examine whether Israel was a true Liberal Democracy in light of its treatment of the Palestinians. In particular Liddle sought to examine the human side of the conflict. Melanie Philips who did not see the documentary, but read his preview article in The Sunday Times, has criticised this programme.

Criticisms

Irish journalist Eamon Dunphy reacted angrily when Liddle called Roy Keane a thug. Dunphy said he was

"the guy who ran away and left his wife for a young one".

Holocaust Memorial Day

In 2005, Liddle was criticised by the Muslim Council of Britain leader Sir Iqbal Sacranie when he said, "The one we didn't want to hear, is the most accurate: Sacranie and Mr Bunglawala don't like Jews. They are both unequivocal anti-semites", after they had suggested a Genocide memorial day was more appropriate than simply a Holocaust Memorial Day.

Mr Bunglawala responded by affirming that:

"Instead of addressing the issue in an evidence-based manner, Liddle resorts to histrionics and smearing, referring to Sir Iqbal Sacranie and myself as anti-semites. We are not. It seems in order to qualify as a Liddle-approved 'moderate' Muslim one needs to remain silent about Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people."

It was also alleged that Liddle ignored the following statement made by the MCB about Holocaust Memorial Day earlier in the year.

"The Nazi Holocaust was a truly evil and abhorrent crime and we stand together with our fellow British Jews in their sense of pain and anguish. None of us must ever forget how the Holocaust began. We must remember it began with a hatred that dehumanised an entire people, that fostered state brutality, made second class citizens of honest, innocent people because of their religion and ethnic identity."

'Immigration Is A Time Bomb'

Liddle was heavily criticised by pro-Muslim groups following the broadcast of his Channel 4 documentary 'Immigration Is A Time Bomb' Amongst the complaints were that Liddle allowed BNP leader Nick Griffin to speak "unchallenged when arguing for freedom of speech" and that he "stated that Griffin should not have been arrested for stating his views" for incitement to racial hatred for which he had already received a two year suspended sentence in 1998. .

Ofcom adjudicated that the programme was entirely fair. The complaints were dismissed.

In February 2006 he wrote an article in The Sunday Times ('Alas, I must defend the BNP') supporting BNP leader Nick Griffin's right to free speech, after Griffin had been arrested for inciting racial hatred.

'The Trouble with Atheism'

Main article: The Trouble with Atheism

Liddle's Channel 4 documentary, 'The Trouble with Atheism', received a great deal of criticism around the time of its airing in December of 2006. The Radio Times said of the programme before its broadcast that it was "a loosely strung polemic, full of leaps and false comparisons, even if his [Liddle's] real point - that all certainties, religious or otherwise, are dangerous - is a good one". The article continues "The funniest part is when Liddle attacks Darwinism by saying that the theory of natural selection is "getting on a bit; it’s 147 years old", as if longevity should count against science. Terry Sanderson of the National Secular Society, was critical throughout, calling the programme "biased, dishonest and about as profound as a pancake". He concluded, "I defend Rod's right to say what he wants, but I also reserve the right to complain that this programme was so poorly made, badly argued and unfairly edited that it fell below the standards we have come to expect of British television." A review from Scotland on Sunday called his logic "moronic", attacking his comments on Hitler and Stalin. The programme has been shortlisted for a Royal Television Society Award and received favourable reviews in all but two of the national newspapers.

'Battle for the Holy Land: Love Thy Neighbour'

The May 21st 2007 documentary Battle for the Holy Land: Love Thy Neighbour has been criticised by Melanie Philips on her blog in the post The war against Israel (14). Among other issues, she points out that Liddle fails to take into account the Jewish historical ties to much of Judea and Samaria including the continuous inhabitation of cities such as Hebron by Jews up until Jews were ethnically cleansed, finally leaving in 1936 and following many massacres by Arabs. Ms Phillips has also admitted that did not actually see the programme.

Personal

Liddle has supported Millwall Football Club since the age of seven. He frequently attends home and away games. He married his long-term girlfriend and HTV reporter, Rachel Royce, in March 2004 in Malaysia. They had had two sons together. Six months later, he moved in with Alicia Monckton, a twenty-two year old receptionist at The Spectator magazine he'd been seeing for some years, and his wife divorced him. They had been living in Heytesbury in Wiltshire near Warminster. His all-time favourite song is Preludes' A capella version of Neil Youngs "After the Goldrush".

External links

• Rod Liddle: Marching back to Labour
• We may have to bomb Iran
• The New Fundamentalists- A response from the Evangelical Alliance