The BBC’s Rory Cellan-Jones had the best takedown of Rod Liddle’s ‘supposedly racist aside’

John Plunkett. Updated June 17th, 2019

A Rod Liddle column about the recent Peterborough by-election has gone viral. Specifically, this bit, in which he shares his ‘suspicion’ about quite a few of the people who voted in the election.

And it really is quite something, not just that he said it, but that it was printed by The Sunday Times. In (checks watch) 2019.

“I suppose that last comment will be considered a racist aside”

Rod Liddle, while claiming the Peterborough by-election will be re-run bc his “suspicion is” that postal votes came from illiterate Asians mistaking the ballot paper for a takeaway curry menu pic.twitter.com/p92ED1r3Dw

— Nosheen Iqbal (@NosheenIqbal) June 16, 2019

It prompted no end of responses, as you can imagine.

Rod Liddle wrote this racist, elitist, anti-democratic slur in an column for The Times and it was published.

I'm going to repeat that last bit because I cannot quite believe it.

It was published.
It was published.
It was published. pic.twitter.com/xGmIxkLnWb

— Helen the Zen (@helenmallam) June 17, 2019

This is how racism gets normalised. Clearly the sub-editors had no issue with this from Rod Liddle.

Poisonous, divisive and of course, all courtesy of a Rupert Murdoch publication.
(via @NosheenIqbal) pic.twitter.com/g6MmV5fM4Q

— The Sun Apologies (@SunApology) June 17, 2019

Among the many disgusting things about that Rod Liddle quote is that it appeared in The Times. That anyone thought it appropriate to print that bile in the best known and most prestigious broadsheet in Britain shows just how low we have fallen.

— Otto English (@Otto_English) June 17, 2019

My mum and dad are migrants from India, Rod Liddle. Mum was a doctor in the NHS. Dad was a civil engineer who worked on the Thames Flood Barrier project. But, of course, they wouldn't have a clue about politics or voting. They'd think they were ordering the muttar paneer. Idiot. pic.twitter.com/NUXZz1VMHR

— (((Snigdha))) (@snigskitchen) June 17, 2019

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1140571865888563200

But none of the responses were quite as good as that offered by the BBC’s technology correspondent, Rory Cellan-Jones.

When Rod Liddle was a BBC editor wandering around dressed like a roadie for a heavy metal band I thought he was a pretentious git. Since then he’s morphed into a racist git. https://t.co/dtM7nKDT3Z

— Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) June 17, 2019

Source