Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 102

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...

Where are the Real Tories? We need a party to halt the advance of the state | Simon Jenkins

The Conservatives’ default ideology is Thatcherism, but this government splurges cash on vanity projects

The trouble with David Cameron is that we don’t know what he stands for. How often do we hear this cry, not least from Conservatives? But what is he supposed to stand for? Two weeks ago I argued the need for a “real Labour” party. It was relatively easy. Labour can be defined by its interests, its texts and proclaimed values. A “real Tory” is harder to define. In our campaign quest for choi...

Facebook’s outage exposes our digital fragility | Simon Jenkins

Today’s Facebook suspension shows how vulnerable digital information is – penetrable by hackers, governments or subject to random failures

OMG Facebook is down! Down too went Instagram. It was just for an hour this morning, but the tweets screamed “Do I have to talk to someone real?”

In a manner of speaking, yes. Despite the hackers of Lizard Squad claiming credit, it is now clear that an outage at Facebook’s HQ was responsible. But the confusion was understandable after Lizard Squad had in rec...

QE for the eurozone is a gigantic confidence trick. It should fool no one | Simon Jenkins

Quantitative easing will simply bury money in commercial bank vaults, when it is cash in circulation that’s desperately needed

• Live blog: Thursday’s developments in the eurozone

At last the euro’s lords and masters have accepted that something must be done about their zone’s lamentable growth. They will unleash a massive bond-buying programme totalling a reported €1tn. The former BBC economic pundit Stephanie Flanders told the world it was “Santa Claus time”; the European Central Bank (ECB) h...

Chilcot: we know Blair was to blame for Iraq, so this is already a work of history | Simon Jenkins

The longer we wait for the inquiry, the less we care about the outcome. Such reports should be immediate and quick, whatever the risks of unfairness

The best war inquiry was into the Charge of the Light Brigade. It was conducted by the poet Alfred Tennyson in eight weeks, and reached a one-line conclusion, “Someone had blunder’d.” It has never been bettered.

Everyone knows who blundered in Iraq. It was Tony Blair. Mild interest may still attach to the question, why? But no one is sitting in an...