Rod Liddle, a columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun, has died aged 66 after a short illness, News UK said. Liddle died at James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough on Sunday evening, his children Wilder, Tyler and Emmy said in a statement praising his wit and describing his sudden passing as shocking. Liddle edited BBC Radio 4’s Today programme earlier in his career, worked as a speechwriter for the Labour party in the 1980s, and wrote for the Spectator. He was a polarising figure whose provocative style attracted both praise and criticism; in 2010 the Press Complaints Commission censured him for a Spectator claim about violent crime in London. Tributes were paid by Piers Morgan, former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, BBC Today presenter Justin Webb, and Rebekah Brooks, chief executive of News UK. David Yelland, a former Sun editor, said Liddle was “brilliant and gifted” though he often wrote “abhorrently on many occasions.”