Rod Liddle Isn’t Racist - BUT

Those who know their recent newspaper history know that one should not expect any better from the Murdoch Sunday Times than to pander to the lowest common denominator, the basest instincts of not just those buying the paper, but also the potential audience of clickers. So it is equally no surprise that the paper continues to use the services of professional bigot and amateur human being Rod Liddle.

I've only had the one bottle, officer, honesht

As a result, the Murdoch mafiosi know what they are likely to see submitted by The Great Man, and today has been no exception, another of the increasingly long list of articles telling the readers “I’m not racist, but here’s a crock of racist crap”. Today’s pile of steaming bullpucky is titled “Half of black children do not live with their father. And we wonder why they’re dying”. Milking the faux sympathy angle. Sickening.

But do go on. “I suspect that the first thing many of you thought when you heard that a 14-year-old boy, Jaden Moodie, had been knocked off his moped and stabbed to death in east London - the first thing after the wave of utter revulsion and pity at a young life wiped out - was: what is a kid of that age doing out at night illegally riding a moped?” Why should we think that, then? Because he was black? The excuses continue.

He uses someone else’s opinion - that absent fathers are the problem, and that it’s all down to that Political Correctness Gorn Mad because WE CAN’T TALK ABOUT IT COS THEY ARE BLACK - to link the death of a 14-year-old to the Rotherham child abuse scandal (subtext: Labour’s fault). Also, his source tells him that the “brilliant African-Caribbean mum” is a myth, so it’s their fault as well.

From this we get the predictable “the root causes cannot be addressed because the various authorities are beholden to an ideology that precludes coming to a conclusion that could be construed as ‘racist’”. As opposed to a Sunday Times pundit who can be construed as racist, because he is racist. And there is more.

“Little Jaden wasn’t filmed making a rap video - but he was photographed making the usual fatuous gangsta moves with his hands, and earlier seen posing holding wads of banknotes”. And, so what? Is this another of those “rap videos, gangsta moves, nudge nudge, wink wink, they’re all like that, know what I mean” agruments?

Even Liddle’s conclusion - “Fourteen years old, born into utter hopelessness, with few prospects” is patronising and insulting. Jaden did indeed have prospects - that’s what made his death so much harder for his family to bear. Moreover, the idea that having both parents at home would magically transform the situation and prevent knife attacks is equally fatuous - it didn’t save Stephen Lawrence.

Small wonder Ross McCafferty has mused “Rod Liddle, who left his wife after 6 months for someone half his age then accepted a police caution over a domestic violence incident with his pregnant girlfriend, lecturing on family values is it?” Sunny Hundal added “The Sunday Times has no shame in continually publishing this vile racist”.

As one Tweeter put it, “The Sunday Times still have Rod Liddle on the books then, I see.

But sure. They're not racist”. And it’s not about free speech, either. This is about the monetising of bigotry. It is totally out of order. And it’s not good enough.

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