Say It Ain't So Joe

I know there are a lot of 'ifs' and 'buts' to negotiate before it happens but the news that if Alexander Lebedev succeeds in buying the Independent group of newspapers he will make Rod Liddle the editor is horrible.

Liddle is one of the most, if not the most, obnoxious, racist, hate filled, Millwall supporting toads in the history of journalism and broadcasting. He doesn't know the meaning of the word balanced, he can only view the world from the far right of it, he's almost falling off the edge, he's standing next to the sign that says 'here be dragons.' My intense dislike of the man comes from an article he wrote a few years ago where he claimed that he took considerable pride in calling a 10 year old Leeds fan 'quaint,' after a match at the New Den

His article in the Spectator before Christmas was so unbalanced it's a surprise that the copies of the magazine didn't lean over when piled high in W.H Smith's, mind you given the tiny readership of that rag I doubt there were enough printed to make a pile tall enough to encourage any leaning of any sort. So why I am I bothered? I'm bothered because he is a writer who thinks it is okay to write such rubbish as ," The overwhelming majority of street crime, knife crime, gun crime, robbery and crimes of sexual violence in London is carried out by young men from the African-Caribbean community," without offering anything by way of back-up. Of course, in return, we have rap music, goat curry and a far more vibrant and diverse understanding of cultures which were once alien to us. For which, many thanks."

As Diane Abbot, MP for Hackney North, said: "It is obviously statistically false to say that the 'overwhelming majority' of the crimes listed by Rod are committed by young black men... The interesting thing is why he chose to post something which, if you chose another set of hysterical racial stereotypes and substituted Jew for Afro-Caribbean, would not have been out of place in a speech by Oswald Mosley. "We have all got so used to Rod Liddle's low-level racism that it has lost the power to shock."

Bonnie Greer, a woman whose shadow has more intellect than Liddle's whole sentient being
said in reply, "My response would be to say that the overwhelming majority of paedophiles, murderers, warmongers and football hooligans are white males and all we got in return was beans on toast and Top Gear."

Liddle may well have had a serious point to make, in fact he later claimed that the article was designed to promote a discussion about culture rather than race, unfortunately he forgot to put that codicil to his piece - mmm, wonder why eh Rod?