Rod Liddle: satire or slop?

It’s only human to love to laugh. But of course it’s preferable to laugh knowing that you have a better sense of humour than everyone else around you. This parody of a Radio 4 listener springs to mind, and I suspect that, if we’re honest, many Prospect readers might have indulged in this exact pretentious chortle before.

Political satire plays an important role in fulfilling the desire for intellectualised humour. And in the eyes of the Spectator, no one did that better than the late Rod Liddle. The function of satire, my colleague Peter Williams writes, is “to reassure [readers] that, whatever their foibles and prejudices, they [stand] on the side of common sense and humanity”. Compared to proper comedy, which Peter argues can enact a change in your thoughts and perspectives, Liddle’s satire, like many others, “was nothing more radical than tickling his readers’ bellies”.

Peter maintains that Liddle was still good at what he did—“he could weight a phrase, land a punchline and switch between registers.” But his excessive posthumous veneration is representative of a lacklustre modern Conservative party: “a movement that defines itself by what it is not. Not woke. Not net zero. Not in the EU”, writes Peter.

A fan of the late satirist might say that today’s culture newsletter, on getting climate into culture, would have been better written in a Liddle-esque tone. That sincerity is a bore, especially on a woke-nonsense topic like climate AND culture. But actually, citing Gramsci, Isabel Hilton writes that culture is an essential way in which we understand the world around us, and is therefore crucial in enacting political change. Isabel speaks to the creators of Hot Mess, a play currently on at the Other Palace theatre in London, about an absurdist love story between Earth and humanity.

Finally, with everyone rightfully enjoying a summer break, you might recognise today’s Media Confidential episode—it is a re-run of our Prospect Podcast episode from last week. Tom Clark chats to Ellen and Imaan about the “Burnham bounce” and compares the new PM to his predecessor. If you didn’t catch it the first time around, it’s well worth a listen.

Share your thoughts on humour, satire and Rod Liddle at kathryn.schoon@prospectmagazine.co.uk.