Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 101

Cameron may be PM – but it’s Osborne who really runs this government | Simon Jenkins

The embattled chancellor has emerged from the budget with his reputation enhanced. Win or lose in May, he will endure.

David Cameron may be monarch of Britain’s coalition but George Osborne is its first minister. He is keeper of the purse, custodian of the flame and author of the narrative.Over five years he has been sometimes hesitant, sometimes bombastic, but today he surveyed the forthcoming election battlefield and sent his party forward: slogan-shouting, banner-flying – “from austerity in...

Bring on the pharmacists – the first step to saving the NHS | Simon Jenkins

The NHS’s problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s an abundance of restrictive practices. So putting pharmacies in GP surgeries is just the start we need

The NHS has long grown fat on restrictive practices. If I want an NHS doctor and need a blood test, I make a separate appointment with a nurse. If I want an NHS specialist, I must see an NHS doctor first for a “referral”. If I have an accident I may have to wait hours to see a doctor, even if a nurse can help me in five minutes. To get a simple me...

Was David Cameron furious? Was Margaret Hodge rude? Maybe, but we need our leaders to lose it | Simon Jenkins

We can’t always worry about politicians ‘setting a bad example’ - they have to offer an outlet for popular anger

Rage is cool. David Cameron has had enough of self-righteous television executives telling him how to conduct a general election. He dislikes TV debates and does not care who attacks him for it – which is almost everyone; they can all F-off. And so can ex-generals wittering on about defence spending to sell their books. He is furious.

Meanwhile, Margaret Hodge MP, chair of the public...

Terror is not as big a threat to British values as the hysterical response to it | Simon Jenkins

Philip Hammond attacks Isis ‘apologists’, but scaremongering politicians, a greedy security industry and reckless media all carry heavy responsibility too

In a speech today, foreign secretary Philip Hammond attacks those who apologise for Islamic State (Isis) recruiting. “A huge burden of responsibility rests with those who act as their apologists,” he says; they are to terrorism what Lenin called “useful idiots”.Hammond’s anger is understandable, given the ease with which the media has public...

The End of Apartheid by Robin Renwick review – why Thatcher got it right on South Africa

In his diary entries recalling the decline of apartheid, the former British ambassador to South Africa appears to push the limits of diplomatic courtesy

Ask readers of the Guardian what Margaret Thatcher’s view of apartheid was and they would probably guess she was in favour, and regarded Mandela as a fanatic best kept in jail. Such is the power of stereotype. Yet Thatcher opposed apartheid and she lobbied Pretoria incessantly for Mandela’s release. She parted company with the libera...

Let’s move Westminster to Manchester, and reclaim democracy | Simon Jenkins

Parliament is unfit for purpose, physically and ethically. A change of location could jolt politics into the 21st century

Good man, John Bercow. The Speaker of the House of Commons is what management gurus call disruptive; it means sound. Just six weeks from an election, he said on Tuesday that MPs needed £3bn from the taxpayer to tart up their offices and rid them of mice. The press reacted as if he were offering massage parlours to prisoners. How dare he pander to those pampered M...

Jailing those who fail to act on child abuse won’t stop another Rotherham | Simon Jenkins

The government’s plan to criminalise social workers, teachers and care staff if they turn a blind eye to child abuse will only result in defensive practice

Should you go to prison if you don’t do your job properly? That is the concept behind the government’s new regime for teachers, social workers, police and council staff dealing with young people. If they ignore cases of child sex grooming, they are tolerating what the prime minister bizarrely calls “a national threat”. They are guilty of “w...

On the NHS, where Manchester leads, England’s other cities must follow | Simon Jenkins

In taking control of its health services, the ‘northern powerhouse’ can be a model for the rest of the nation

England’s new welfare state starts at 8.30 on Friday morning in Manchester town hall. A ceremony will transfer control of the city’s health services to its people. It ends half a century of ministers in parliament telling doctors when to see patients, what pills should be given, which operations get priority, and how long a home visit should last.

It ends an NHS whose size compares to R...

Whether in June or November, Qatar’s World Cup is about death and money | Simon Jenkins

Fifa remains corrupt to the core. The FA could ban its players from taking part in so dishonest a tournament, but it doesn’t have the guts

Today the Fifa taskforce has recommended that the 2022 World Cup be shifted from June to November, still in Qatar. November is of course cooler than June, when temperatures are 40C in the shade. It has taken Fifa, still besozzled with Qatari billions, five years to discover this fact. While dozens have continued to die in appalling conditions each year to b...

Yes, ads hurt press freedom. But the alternatives are worse | Simon Jenkins

A searing indictment of the Telegraph’s HSBC reporting underlines the critical balance between holding readers’ faith and staying in business

Newspapers are institutionalised hypocrisy. They excoriate yet they cringe. They speak truth to power and then sup at its table. They stick their moral noses in the air while their bottoms rest on festering heaps of deals, perks, bribes and ads, without which they would not exist. The most amazing thing is that this murky edifice has delivered Britain a...