His published works include Too Beautiful for You (2003), Love Will Destroy Everything (2007), The Best of Liddle Britain (co-author, 2007) and the semi-autobiographical Selfish Whining Monkeys (2014).
[10][11] His early career in journalism was with the South Wales Echo in Cardiff where he was a general news reporter and, for a time, the rock and pop writer.
[12] Although Liddle considered becoming a secondary school teacher, he decided against it on the grounds that he "could not remotely conceive of not trying to shag the kids", clarifying that he wouldn't have "dabbled much below Year 10.".
Gilligan's 29 May 2003 report on Today—that the British government had "sexed up" the intelligence dossier on Iraq, a report broadcast after Liddle had left the programme—began a chain of events that included the death in July that year of David Kelly, the weapons inspector who was Gilligan's source, and the subsequent Hutton Inquiry, a public inquiry into the circumstances of Kelly's death.
Liddle said, "History has shown us 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.
He also appeared in Channel 4's alternative election night episode of Come Dine with Me along with Edwina Currie, Derek Hatton and Brian Paddick.
[10] In August 2009, in his Spectator blog he wrote about Harriet Harman, deputy leader of the Labour Party, in unflattering terms.
Pointing out that it was The Spectator's cover story that week, Gold wondered if, after 100 years of striving to improve women's rights, whether "we're back in the schoolyard – or is it the brothel?
"[29] Rachel Cooke in The Observer nearly two months later recalled finding Liddle's piece "so disgusting I flushed violently all the way from my breastbone to my forehead when I first read it.
Liddle said two months later that the Harman column "was supposed to be a parody of guttural, base sexism", a joke he assumed readers would understand.
He made remarks, considered sarcastic, that read: "Incidentally, many Somalis have come to Britain as immigrants recently, where they are widely admired for their strong work ethic, respect for the law and keen, piercing, intelligence.
[40] Giving a speech at Durham University in December 2021, Liddle said: "It is fairly easily proven that colonialism is not remotely the major cause of Africa's problems, just as it is very easy to prove that the educational underachievement of British people of Caribbean descent or African Americans is nothing to do with institutional or structural racism.
"[41] The Guardian reported on 8 January 2010 that the expected purchase of The Independent by Alexander Lebedev, a Russian billionaire, would be followed by the appointment of Liddle as editor.
[42] Roy Greenslade wrote on 11 January that the reports were provoking a "major internal and external revolt" by The Independent's staff and readers.
[45] Tim Luckhurst, professor of journalism at the University of Kent, argued that Liddle's prospects of editing The Independent were nullified "by the people behind a viciously intolerant campaign of liberal bigotry".
"[32] In November 2011, an article by Liddle for The Spectator suggested the trial of two men accused (and later convicted) of murdering Stephen Lawrence would not be fair.
[49] It was referred to the Attorney General Dominic Grieve by the judge for possible contempt of court,[50] and he ordered the jurors not to read it.
[53] In January 2012, Liddle wrote that many people in the UK were "pretending to be disabled" in his column for The Sun,[54] an opinion defended by James Delingpole who thought "Rod's point is well made".
[55] Frances Ryan in The Guardian accused him of "belittling something that on a daily basis affects real people" who can be "a huge benefit to society.
[57][60] In May 2015, the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) upheld a complaint from Trans Media Watch that Liddle had been discriminatory towards Emily Brothers, a blind and transgender Labour candidate at the 2015 general election, in two Sun columns published in December 2014 and January 2015.
[61][62] In December 2013 in a blog article for The Spectator website published shortly after Nelson Mandela died, Liddle wrote that the BBC coverage on his death was excessive.
[67] Liddle responded in his Spectator blog: So, Crispin Blunt MP feels hurt because laws proscribing amyl nitrate [sic] (or 'poppers') would criminalise the entire gay community.
I would have thought that the requirement for amyl nitrate to relax the sphincter muscle and lube to accommodate entry was God's way of telling you that what you're about to do is unnatural and perverse.
[68]The satirical and current affairs magazine Private Eye described this as hypocritical, pointing out Liddle's account in The Sunday Times of using Viagra in July 2004 in which he wrote that it was: "The weirdest drug I ever took, far more psychologically disturbing than LSD.
An investigation by the BBC upheld these complaints, saying that Maitlis was "persistent and personal" in her criticism of Liddle thus "leaving her open to the charge that she had failed to be even-handed" in the discussion.
The column was criticised by senior political figures including Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid and former Conservative Deputy Prime Minister David Lidington.
Admitting to having paid little attention to Liddle's journalism, Will Self, in his review for The Guardian wrote: "it's so much more authoritative to hear a man condemned out of his own mouth over 200-plus pages than it is to assay him on the basis of newspaper columns, which, by and large, favour polarised views tendentiously expressed."
The book was reviewed positively by Professor Matthew Goodwin in The Sunday Times, who called it "a no-holds-barred attack on the Establishment's blocking of Brexit".
Liddle called her a "total slut and slattern",[83] and Royce wrote an article in the Daily Mail titled "My cheating husband Rod, 10 bags of manure and me the bunny boiler.
[88] Liddle originally joined the SDP in 2019,[89] noting that as a political movement "it stresses the commonality shared between citizens, rather than the differences".