Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 101

Let’s salute Nick Clegg’s final voyage as the good ship Lib Dem sinks

Nick Clegg cannily played the role of kingmaker in the last parliament and got a cabinet full of Lib Dems and a coalition that lasted. But it’s all over now

Danger: Deep Water, said the sign behind Nick Clegg as he visited a hedgehog farm yesterday. The Liberal Democrat leader was starting his election campaign in unpromising surroundings. As he steers his ship towards disaster he can at least show elegant irony.

The Lib Dems could once wield the power of kingmakers in a hung parliament. Now th...

An antidote to Alex Salmond: offer the Scots home rule | Simon Jenkins

The SNP’s would-be kingmaker could yet demand another referendum. Ed Miliband must call his bluff

It has been the most boring question in politics: who do you think is going to win the May election? Only a fool would give an answer. You might as well toss a coin. But suddenly the clouds have parted and there appears clear blue sky ahead. Or is it red? This is courtesy of an interview in the New Statesman by the putative Scottish leader in the commons, Alex Salmond. He says that if the Tories a...

David Cameron states the blindingly obvious and the Westminster village yokels are amazed | Simon Jenkins

There was nothing in the prime minister’s BBC interview that was worthy of consternation – he should tell the gossips to grow up

It’s carrotgate. Kitchen unconfidential. Catastrophe in Le Creuset.

The prime minister states the blindingly obvious and Westminster village yokels declare themselves stunned, amazed and “totally distracted”. David Cameron thinks 15 years as party leader will be enough, and there are plenty of people able to follow him. Shock, horror. How could he say such a thing?

Re...

Britain is as tribal now as it has been for millennia | Simon Jenkins

A new study confirms that the people of England are largely of Germanic origin. But it fails to answer the question of when they really came

Some years ago I went to see a medieval farmhouse in north Devon. The owner was a hostile character with a gun and a mastiff. “Where you from?” he shouted as I approached. I said I was from London. “OK, as long as you’re not from Cornwall,” he said, spitting as he spoke. Cornwall was barely 10 miles away.

This was no petty football rivalry. It reflects, we...

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...