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news
Wetherby wire on path (via West Yorkshire Police).PNG‘Tempting’ – Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle on stretching piano wire across road to target cyclists
Sunday Times columnist Rod Liddle has said in today’s edition of the newspaper that he finds it “tempting” to stretch piano wire across the road to target cyclists – something that, as we reported last month, resulted in a man being injured when he was riding on a trail near Leeds with his son.
The column was published under the title, ‘The BBC is doing its job again. All it took was thousands of deaths and a useless cabinet’ – but it opened with Liddle’s anti-cyclist rant:
Every day it’s the same. Walk out of my front door with the dog to be swept aside, into a hedge, by a middle-class family from the city who think they’re all Bradley bloody Wiggins. Daddy and Piers, 11, in the peloton. Mummy bringing up the rear with little Poppy, 6, and Oliver, 4. All in Lycra, all with their energy drinks and fatuous expressions on their faces, expressions of self-righteousness and irreproachable virtue. This is a local lane for local people — go back to your tenements, I shout at them. My wife has persuaded me that, strictly speaking, it is against the law to tie piano wire at neck height across the road. Oh, but it’s tempting.
A reference to Halfords’ recent sales boom and “An entire nation that wants nothing more than … a bike with which to cause havoc in every country lane” in the second paragraph excepted, Liddle then moved on to the main point of his column, the “rebirth” of the BBC, where he was editor of the Today programme from 1998 to 2002, making the anti-cyclist rant look particularly gratuitous and out of context.
Moreover, it comes at a time when there have been a number of incidents since lockdown began of cyclists being targeted with drawing pins and tacks, pieces of wood studded with nails and, yes, wire stretched across paths – with police in West Yorkshire releasing pictures (see main image above, and the one below) and appealing for witnesses after one such trap resulted in a cyclist being injured when he rode into it.
> Cyclist injured by wire stretched across West Yorkshire trail
It’s not the first time that Liddle, who also pens a column for The Spectator, where he is associate editor, has taken a swipe at cyclists in The Sunday Times.
In 2016, Cycling UK demanded an apology from the newspaper and the retraction of what it termed an “inflammatory and dangerous” article in which Liddle appeared to applaud Chris Grayling after the then transport secretary doored a cyclist while getting out of his ministerial car outside the Palace of Westminster.
> Sunday Times: Rod Liddle wasn’t condoning ‘dooring’ cyclists – he was just using “heavy irony”
In its response, the newspaper claimed that the column had been written with “heavy irony” – a reaction that dismayed not only the national cycling charity, but also the widow of a cyclist who was was killed in Southport in January 2014 after a motorist opened her car door into his path without looking.
The column brings to mind one written in sister paper The Times back in 2007 by former MP Matthew Parris, who wrote: “A festive custom we could do worse than foster would be stringing piano wire across country lanes to decapitate cyclists.”
The complaints received in response to that article, published under the headline, ‘What’s smug and deserves to be decapitated?’, elicited what might be best described as a grudging apology from Parris, who claimed that the remark “was meant humorously but so many cyclists have taken it seriously that I plainly misjudged. I am sorry.”
No doubt Liddle’s remarks were also meant “humorously,” but we wouldn’t advise you to hold your breath while waiting for Liddle to issue any apology, grudging or otherwise, for his latest piece.
We have contacted Cycling UK for a comment.
Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.
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66 comments
Completely agree, don't get me wrong, I condemn this utterly for precisely that reason. It just seems all the more contemptible to call for it from the safety of the keyboard.
Well, there was that chap who worked in London and moved to Norway/Denmark who did post that concrete block idea on here.
His name escapes me.
Arthur?
Kevin?
Peter?
Brian?
Arthur again?
From Sweden?
They went to Copenhagen, we haven't heard from them since.
Paving slabs, they liked the paving slab.
Legs_Eleven_Worcester
If you do not know the person's name, there is no need for a facetious reply.
Ktache clearly remembers the poster.
Rod Liddle writes column to provoke outrage in the way he has been doing for nearly 20 years, do people still fall for this nonsense? Are they genuinely surprised by it still after all this time ? What would be shocking is if he didnt for once write in that style, but theres more chance the roads will become a new cycling nirvana than that happening.
The outraged responses is what keeps him in orbit. The guy is a desperate douche best ignored. Stop giving him what he wants.
What's very rarely acknowledged is that the columnists and publications that are 'outraged' make good money from the clicks and views that their 'outrage' garners.
They are essentially reliant on 'outrageous' people like Liddle for part of their income.
Ignoring him would be by far the better option but there's no money in that.
It's uncanny...
Or better yet...
I have made a complaint to IPSO about this article, it is dangerous enough cycling around without articles like this inciting further violence.
I wonder if The Times would make alterations if enough of us complained
Have complaine too, and also to the Times. Not that it will do any good.
Well, it made some difference when they received more complaints than anything else about Matthew Paris' disgusting comments about doing the same, and he issued an apology along the lines of "I'm really, really sorry. That you don't have a sense of humour." I left comments on his twitter feed which were promptly deleted. Scum.
Trying a different tack - I've reported it on the government's website for reporting hate crimes (including inciting others to commit hate crimes).
Either there are whole groups of cyclists riding on the pavement past his house, or he's walking his dog in the road. I smell bullshit. Not exactly surprising to hear that a right wing, elitist gobshite like Liddle is still completely full of shit.
I remember getting really hassled by a car driver in a q of traffic once - he was revving me, hooting, trying to 'nudge' me all the usual - and I stopped by his open window and asked "why?"
What am I doing that is so upsetting you? I am just going home after work. On a bike, through a long q of traffic. And this ''rant" feels the same. Why? what is this (fictionalised) cycling family or any cyclist doing that is so upsetting you?
Clarkson, Liddle and Parris.
What a threesome, all spouting their bile at a perceived easy target. Parris lives just down the road from me, in real life he's just as obnoxious as he comes across in some of the drivel he writes. I also know where Clarksons farm is too, perhaps the pair of them need a well hidden police stinger across their farm roads so that they can see what it's like from the other side.
Haven't got a clue where Liddle lives, but I know plenty of people who move in those kind of circles who would. It would be highly amusing to see the irascible idiot learn his lesson for his stupid remarks.
It'll never happen though, mores the pity.
Ok we get you know people....
Woah fella!
It's not what you know that counts, but who you know.
Always has been , always will.
Sorry if that offends you
every mention of this sort of thing just gives it currency and fractionally increases the chances of some copycat idiot with just a comic book view of the consequences turning into a perpetrator. Kick him out, Mrs Liddle!!
It would be tempting to tie some 20 metre piano wire around his balls and then tie the ends to two bikes facing away from each other.
On your marks, get set, go!
Psychopath
Why didn't someone, maybe an editor on the paper, point out to this monumental prick that putting a wire across a highway isn't "strictly speaking" an offence IT IS f*****g offence under section 162 of the highways act 1980.
The times group commitment to cycling didn't last long either.
Given that the two old biddies who booby trapped a cycle route were spoken to by the police, I sincerely hope they will be visiting this oxygen thief forthwith.
This is one of the real gripes I have with the msm, not only do they refuse to mention the overwhelming benefits of cycling, but they pay vast sums to obnoxious twats to be obnoxious. Whatever he's getting paid, I'll do it for half the price.
please may have a bit of sympathy for this poor chap, in his time he just about abused every group in society in attempt for attention, those of us with children will recognise the typical tantrum of pay me attention syndrome, in a late middle age man I think its more a issue of pitying him rather than heaping abuse
There's always the press complaints commission, if you have a soft spot for toothless watchdogs.
http://www.pcc.org.uk
sure. I'll travel back to 2014 and report him xD
you mean the new place? https://www.ipso.co.uk/
Good catch. Thx
He's a self appointed "rebel". Always has been. He'd love it if this were followed up by the authorities because it's validate his punk fantasy. Just ignore the fat wobbly cunt.
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