Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 11

Loyalty was once the glue that held the Tories together. But now they’ve come unstuck | Simon Jenkins

Claims of a leadership bid are ‘bonkers’, say Penny Mordaunt’s allies. But so too is staying silent while the PM stumbles towards an election

There are many good reasons for Rishi Sunak to postpone a general election. All are about reducing his party’s potential loss of seats. There is also an overwhelming reason for calling one now. It is in the national interest.

British government needs an act of cleansing. It needs renewal and a fresh start under a new regime. Every month that start is delayed...

Britain’s prison system is brutal and broken. Why does reforming it seem so impossible? | Simon Jenkins

Prisoners are being released early because jails are overflowing. We know what better policies would look like – but politicians won’t act

Guess which public service is hardly ever mentioned in stories about austerity? The answer is prisons. Last week, prison governors were told by the justice minister, Alex Chalk, to send prisoners home two months early to free up cells because 99.7% of prisons were full. He must have been desperate. Imagine hospitals being told to send patients home two weeks e...

The moral of Kate’s picture-editing debacle is simple: the royal family should tell all | Simon Jenkins

The first rule of celebrity is that once you crank up the publicity machine, keeping secrets is out of the question

Royal photo’s telltale signs of editing

Not since Trotsky vanished from the Soviet politburo portrait has photo-editing caused such a storm. What dark secrets lie behind the daughter’s misaligned sweater, the blurred skirt and the twisted zip? What dynastic horror is being concealed by the Princess of Wales’s missing wedding ring? What are we not being told?

Questions over the princes...

Put yourself in the shoes of a Donald Trump voter – and understand what drives his success | Simon Jenkins

Within Trump’s wild exaggerations are grains of truth. Liberals have never dealt with them – and that’s why he might win again

Donald Trump is certain to be the Republican candidate in this year’s election for US president. He is also currently favourite to win. To most readers of the Guardian, I am sure this prospect is appalling, as it is to most Britons. The nation to which they gave birth and language, that has been their friend and protector down the ages, seems to be going mad.

Britons who k...

Nato is growing reckless over Ukraine – and Russia’s German military leak proves it | Simon Jenkins

An intercepted meeting on sending Taurus missiles to Ukraine suggests the west is on the brink of a risky and futile escalation

The German armed forces are mad. The leaking by Moscow of a 38-minute discussion between the head of the Luftwaffe and senior officers on sending Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine suggests that Nato’s will not to escalate the current war is weakening. The meeting, reportedly held on an unencrypted line, had all the secrecy of a teenage groupchat. It boosted Vladimir Puti...

Like a pub argument on Love Island – The Jury TV series shows all that’s wrong with Britain's judicial system | Simon Jenkins

The level of debate was like a saloon bar shouting match. But then, all juries are a medieval hangover, ripe for reform

This article contains spoilers about the final episode of The Jury: Murder Trial

Should juries be abolished? Last night’s Channel 4 docudrama of a real trial, The Jury: Murder Trial, opened with the question: “Can we trust our justice system?” The only answer any reasonable viewer could give was no.

This four-part series assembled two separate juries to pass judgment on a real-lif...

The money Sunak ‘saves’ from HS2 is getting smaller with every announcement | Simon Jenkins

While the PM makes empty promises to the north, he lacks the courage to cancel the white elephant London-Birmingham line

Rishi Sunak’s high-profile announcement of projects to be apparently funded by killing the northern leg of HS2 is a gem of political cynicism. He has made the announcement twice before, on 4 October and 17 November last year. He seems to have forgotten.

Each time the sum appears to shrink and delivery grows ever more distant. October began with £36bn for a schoolboy wishlist of ...

It's unhenged: millions will be denied one of England's greatest views | Simon Jenkins

A high court judge has ruled to allow the £1.7bn Stonehenge tunnel – and robbed motorists of a precious glimpse of something ancient

The most exhilarating view in Britain is to be abolished. A high court judge this week brought a 30-year battle over Stonehenge to a conclusion by allowing the building of a tunnel to bypass it. Despite opposition from campaigners, archaeologists, planning inspectors and Unesco, the spectacle of one of the most famous prehistoric structures in the world will in futu...

The right to roam … but you have to trespass to get there. England’s countryside rules are truly absurd | Simon Jenkins

It is a scandal that 2,500 beauty spots are designated as places to walk and enjoy, but no one can legally reach them except the landowners

Every country walker knows the cry. Where the hell is the footpath? A right of way with no signpost is not a legal right at all. It is an invitation to trespass.

The revelation that 2,500 areas of English countryside that supposedly enjoy a “right to roam” can be reached only by trespassing over private land is absurd. It means that some 2,700 hectares of open...

Let King Charles’s illness finally change how we speak about cancer: it’s not about ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ a ‘war’ | Simon Jenkins

As someone treated for bowel cancer, I think attitudes must change but also the language. Some of it is tactless, some ridiculous

King Charles has cancer. Coverage of this story in the days since the announcement has been funereal. Daily bulletins are issued. Heads of state send condolences. Pictures portray the monarch ashen-faced. The global media pitch camp outside Buckingham Palace, and wait.

Will the cancer taboo never vanish? Half of Britons who have “had cancer” do something called survive,...