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I regarded Rod Liddle as a close, loyal and utterly brilliant friend for 42 years. We first met in 1984 as parliamentary research assistants working for members of Neil Kinnock’s shadow cabinet. Rod worked for Barry Jones, shadow secretary of state for Wales. I worked for Donald Dewar, shadow secretary of state for Scotland. Rod was a sophisticated mystery even then. It took me months to work out that he was still studying for his degree at the London School of Economics. While I toiled away at my desk between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m., stopping only for lunch in ‘Plod’s’, as we called the cafe off Westminster Hall frequented by police officers and security staff, Rod took regular brief absences from work to dash from SW1 to WC2 to attend lectures. He must have been one of very few students in 1985 who wore a smart suit. It certainly impressed the girls. There were two things I noticed then: he never lacked attractive female company and he almost always carried a newspaper.
Rod wore his learning lightly, but his commitment to the world of ideas was sincere, lifelong and vividly apparent
Rod’s affection for newspapers helped me meet my wife. I had spotted in Plod’s a delightful looking brunette whom I guessed had to be a Conservative. One lunchtime in 1986, I asked Rod if he knew who she was. He explained, with his usual blithe confidence, that she was an American and that he had noticed that she did the Times crossword very fast. He concluded that she was plainly bright but he did not fancy Tory girls. He urged me to ask her out. Reluctant to wimp out in front of my friend, I approached Dorothy Willamson (now Mrs Dorothy Luckhurst) and asked her how the crossword was going. Her answer made me laugh out loud, not because it was not charming but because she spoke in a perfect Kelvinside accent. I reported back: ‘Rod, she’s from Glasgow! She’s not American. She’s posh Scottish. Westbourne School for Girls and St Andrews University. She sounds like Donald Dewar’s ex-wife!’
