In 2019 I had to explain to Iain Dale – live on LBC – that Rod Liddle’s suggestion in his Spectator column that elections should be held on Islamic holy days to deter Muslims from voting was not a serious proposal. Neither was his idea that students be drugged by their parents to the same end. It was humour, and they were jokes.

When he was in hospital a few weeks ago, I visited Rod with some cake. While he munched away, he expressed a sense of regret that he could have been a great writer. Rod always thought his true calling was writing fiction, rather than journalism, and always wondered if he’d sold his soul by following the money.

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He was right – he did have the makings of a British Houellebecq. But while we only need to re-read Too Beautiful For You, his short-story compilation from 2003, to see his potential for quirky black material, I felt it was unfair of Rod to downgrade his journalism. The cult following for his columns and articles showed that his writing had diamond-quality – and, like a diamond, it was cutting. Hilarious, irreverent and taking no prisoners, he said what needed to be said. See one of his best pieces of this decade on taking in a Ukrainian.........

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