Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 102

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...

The only way for Greece is out of the eurozone | Simon Jenkins

Greece’s new government must bite the bullet, declare itself bankrupt and break free from the eurozone – only then can its economy and society recover

Pray for plan B. However many times Greece’s new leaders swear there is none – pacifying their terrified bankers – they must know what to do if last night’s debt renewal disarray continues. They must take the plunge, bite the bullet, face the music, lance the boil. Only by ending the terrible mistake that was Greece’s eurozone membership can its...

The great mansion tax deception | Simon Jenkins

The genuine solution is rebanded council tax. But then Ed Balls would not get to keep the money

Mansion tax is the tax of the moment. It is Britain’s first new fiscal idea since the poll tax in 1989, and is proving no less controversial. Angelina Jolie, Sol Campbell, Myleene Klass and Peter Mandelson are in opposition. A recent ComRes poll showed 70% of MPs of all parties against it – including 90% of Tories, who instead favour council tax reform – as are all Labour’s candidates for mayor...

The secret negotiations to restore Manchester to greatness | Simon Jenkins

Ever since its 19th-century heyday, the city has languished in the shadow of London. But that may be about to change

The stern turrets and gables of Manchester town hall have presided over the city since 1867 to celebrate King Cotton in all its magnificence. They evoke the great “cloth halls” of medieval Flanders and their architect, Alfred Waterhouse, was told to let rip, to go to “any cost reasonably required”. Victorian Manchester would boast twice the riches of London with twice the ostent...

Yes, David Cameron, Britain needs a pay rise – so cough up | Simon Jenkins

Cameron’s been happily giving the banks handouts for years. How about bailing out the public sector and bonuses for welfare recipients, too?

David Cameron is right about pay. The best way to put money into people’s pockets is to put money into people’s pockets. Just like that. Stuff it in. Tell them to go out and spend. “It’s time Britain had a pay rise,” he told the British Chambers of Commerce today.

For five years he has been printing money and stuffing it into bankers’ pockets – and hoping...

Our monarchy is powerless and would remain that way under King Charles | Simon Jenkins

The prince has the right to voice his opinions, but he has no role, no clout and no one has to listen to him

Whenever an American asks me how Britons can tolerate being “subjects” of a hereditary head of state, I give an unsatisfactory reply. I say we are not subjects, and anyway it doesn’t really matter: other things are more important.

America’s obsession with British royalty took another turn this week with a book by the Time magazine journalist Catherine Mayer. In the published extracts she...

Greece’s new finance minister looks like a normal person – how refreshing | Simon Jenkins

With his casual shirt and jeans, Yanis Varoufakis is throwing down the gauntlet to the established European banking order

A yawning gulf has opened in the world of financial diplomacy. It is not whether to bail out Greece yet again. It is how a Greek finance minister should dress when visiting a chancellor of the exchequer. Yanis Varoufakis arrived in Downing Street yesterday in black jeans, a mauve open-necked shirt that was not tucked in, and the sort of leather coat Putin might wear on a be...