Rod Liddle, a well-known columnist for the Sunday Times and the Sun newspapers in the UK, has died at the age of 66 after a short illness. He passed away on a Sunday evening at the James Cook University Hospital in Middlesbrough. The Guardian

At the time of his death, Liddle worked for several major British news outlets. He wrote columns for the Sunday Times and the Sun, presented a show on Times Radio, and was associate editor of The Spectator magazine. His children, Wilder, Tyler and Emmy, survive him.

Liddle's career covered many different parts of British media, from radio to newspapers. He once ran the BBC Radio 4's Today programme, one of the most important news shows in the UK. He left that job in 2002 after a disagreement with his boss, the head of the BBC, over a column he had written for another newspaper, the Guardian. While at Today, he hired a journalist named Andrew Gilligan, whose 2003 report said the UK government had made its case for war in Iraq sound stronger than the evidence supported. That report led to a major official investigation called the Hutton Inquiry.

Before all of that, Liddle worked as a speechwriter for the Labour Party in the 1980s, which gave him deep knowledge of politics that later shaped his writing. He also once hosted a TV show about infidelity, where he argued that men were genetically wired to be unfaithful.

Liddle's writing often stirred up debate. In 2010, he became the first blogger to be formally criticised by the Press Complaints Commission, a body that oversaw British newspaper standards at the time. The complaint was about a piece he wrote for The Spectator in which he incorrectly claimed that the "overwhelming majority" of violent crime in London was carried out by young African-Caribbean men. The ruling meant that articles published online could be held to the same standards as printed ones.

Several well-known figures paid tribute to Liddle after his death. Piers Morgan, former Sunday Times editor Andrew Neil, and BBC Today presenter Justin Webb all honoured him. Webb called Liddle brilliant, kind and funny. Former Sun editor David Yelland said Liddle had become a brilliant writer whom Yelland rarely agreed with but always read first.

Rebekah Brooks, the head of News UK, the company that publishes both the Sunday Times and the Sun, said staff were "deeply shocked and saddened." Sunday Times editor Ben Taylor said Liddle had a wonderful way with words and that for years his column was the first thing many readers turned to every Sunday. Sun editor-in-chief Victoria Newton called him a champion of press freedom whose writing was "as funny as it was excoriating."

The wider picture here is that the range of people who praised Liddle, including those who strongly disagreed with him, says a lot about his role in British media. He was not someone who brought people together. He was someone who provoked reactions — readers engaged with his work whether they shared his views or not. The 2010 complaint against him and his decision to hire Andrew Gilligan both show the same pattern: Liddle was willing to publish things others would not, which sometimes got him into trouble and sometimes changed the national conversation.

His exit from the Today programme over a disagreement about writing columns also points to a tension that still exists in British journalism. The BBC, as a public broadcaster funded by taxpayers, is required to stay neutral. But its senior journalists often want the freedom to express personal opinions in newspapers. Liddle dealt with that conflict by leaving the BBC altogether.

His path from Labour Party speechwriter to BBC editor to columnist for right-leaning newspapers does not follow a simple political line. Instead, it reflects a career built on having a strong voice and stirring debate rather than sticking to one set of beliefs.

His death leaves an empty space in the Sunday Times opinion pages that, according to Ben Taylor, was a weekly habit for many readers. Who fills that spot will offer a clue about where one of Britain's most influential newspapers wants to take its opinion section next.