William Watson: ‘Free’ but dumb vs. freedom

My favourite columnist died last week, Rod Liddle, 66, of The Spectator, the venerable British magazine once owned by Conrad Black and edited by Boris Johnson, who went on to be London mayor and then British prime minister. The current editor is Michael Gove, former Conservative education minister, justice minister and Tory leadership candidate. The current Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch, was director of digital at The Spectator as recently as 2015. She contributed a tribute to Liddle — a smart, well-written one — to last week’s memorial issue: “Rod was outrageous, dark, rude and extremely funny … deliberately provocative … poking fun at the po-faced moralizers who want to lecture everybody while leading hypocritical lives themselves.” Though he also challenged unhypocritical ones who were wrong nevertheless. Read More

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