Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 108

What Stonehenge needs is a tidy-up | Simon Jenkins

I find the stones as they are rather dull. We rebuild churches and cathedrals why not make the circle complete, as Stonehenge once was?

Stonehenge is the nearest thing I know to proof of the existence of God, or perhaps gods. This week it made the New York Times not once but twice. Under a harvest moon, its high priests gathered in Birmingham to tell the world of their latest mystical findings while down in Wiltshire there was a deafening noise. Out of a flying machine stepped the most powerfu...

Scotland has been promised devo supermax, but divorce will still happen | Simon Jenkins

London is spooked and is suddenly doling out more powers to Edinburgh, but I wouldnt trust an inch of what is on offer

The prime minister is silent. Ed Miliband is a dud. Tony Blair is with the fairies. London is so desperate it has summoned Gordon Brown from his brooding lair and sent him north to save Scotland for the union. He has taken with him more gold than when Ethelred the Unready paid danegeld to the Vikings.

What has changed in the past month? The answer is poll-induced panic. London...

Scottish independence: A yes vote will produce a leaner, meaner Scotland | Simon Jenkins

The no campaign offers merely stasis. Even with devo max, Scots would remain in political shackles. Its time to break free

I sit overlooking Cardiff Bay as seven warships, including the destroyer HMS Duncan, manoeuvre gingerly into position. They join an army of 10,000 assorted police and guards to lock down the city so that Nato can eat a banquet in Cardiff castle. Not since the Field of the Cloth of Gold can such extravagance have masked such impotence. From the castle walls, statesmen hurl...

While Nato swills champagne, its Putin who calls the shots | Simon Jenkins

This weeks lavish Nato summit wont change the fact that it has been outmanoeuvred and humiliated in Ukraine by a puffed-up Putin

This weeks absurdly lavish Nato summit in Wales could not be worse timed. It will be a public display of the impotence of what preens itself as the worlds most powerful alliance. Vladimir Putin, its historic foe, has been allowed to engineer its humiliation. He lies, he bullies, he invades, he shrugs off sanctions. He knows Nato will not go to war. He can therefore g...

I want my rulers chosen on merit, but care more about how they rule | Simon Jenkins

The distribution of power, rather than its social makeup, is what counts. Only a constitutional revolution can dent the great British establishment

Surprise, surprise, Britain is ruled by an elite of like-minded people from the same middle-class backgrounds. According to the commission on social mobility and child poverty, this should be a wake-up call. Something must be done urgently or nothing will change. Merit is outgunned by class. Elite recruitment must be background blind.

These bromides...

Bank holidays: end these annual festivals of misery | Simon Jenkins

The rainiest, coldest summer holiday for ages underlines one simple fact: these outdated days off come at the wrong times of year, and should be scrapped

I blame the British class system. Yesterdays August bank holiday was the coldest on record, with an average 30mm of rain. Carnivals in Notting Hill and elsewhere were drenched. Snow fell in Scotland. It was reportedly warmer in Siberia. On my Welsh beach, hardy souls in puffer jackets and scarves walked their dogs while children bleakly trail...

Britains focus in Iraq should be humanitarian, not military | Simon Jenkins

We should always help people whose lives are blighted by wars, but we should not pretend to fight those wars for them

David Cameron wants Britain to stay out of Iraq. We are not going to get involved no boots on the ground no sending in the British army. Assuming he means it, he is right. He is right to focus Britains response to Islamic State (Isis) on humanitarian aid. He is right not to abandon his holiday, which would merely suggest that Iraq is Britains responsibility, encouraging the lap...

How can Chris Grayling deny our prisons crisis? | Simon Jenkins

Successive prisons inspectors sound the alarm about our overcrowded, violent jails, but British politicians dont want to kick the habit

The British are prison addicts. We scour the country for reasons to imprison. We jail for not having a television licence, for Googling in jury rooms, for smoking cannabis, for hacking a phone, for swapping points, for perjury or, the latest obsession, historic sex abuse. Every week someone over 60 is jailed for actions unreported 30 or 40 years ago. In the pa...

The case for Trident is absurd. Scotland may help us get rid of it | Simon Jenkins

Prestige, not defence, is the only reason to keep this £100bn albatross. We may yet give thanks for Alex Salmonds posturing

I just cannot get enough of the Scottish referendum debate. On every side the unthinkable is thought, the unsayable said. The murky covers are removed from North Sea oil, the single currency, the Barnett formula, welfare dependency, the West Lothian question, revealing swamps of intellectual confusion our rulers would rather keep hidden. None is murkier that the fate...

Robin Williams: the sadness of a clown that couldnt be fixed | Simon Jenkins

Williams, like many others, struggled with addiction and personal demons. Mental illness is a great leveller but is still too little understood

Robin Williams found dead in California home aged 63

The sadness of the clown is an old showbusiness irony. The death of the clown is even sadder. But Robin Williams was no ordinary clown, he was a clown in the round, a master of the one-liner, of verbal riff, mimicry, disguise, facial distortion, fury and hilarity. He made them laugh and he made them...