Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 116

How Putin plays the crisis in Ukraine will decide his fate | Simon Jenkins

The Sochi Games are over and now the Russian president must deal with the uprising in Kiev – but as a statesman or a bully?

No plan survives contact with the enemy. The modern Olympics offer puffed-up authority the world over a platform for its political message. Vladimir Putin spent the requisite money, in excess of $50bn, to win and stage the Games. He supplied seven guards for every athlete. In return he had the world's sports media ready to launder his every word with synthetic hysteria, B...

How much is it costing to scare British taxpayers into paying for HS2? | Simon Jenkins

In what amounts to an abuse of democracy, lobbyists are being used to put the case for an absurd project few really want

The government's project for a new high-speed railway from Birmingham to London Euston is entering a critical phase. This has nothing to do with trains but everything to do with tribes.

Last week there were unconfirmed reports that the government may abandon the link between the proposed HS2 terminus at Euston and Eurostar's HS1 down the road at St Pancras. The link solved a...

For Britain's pupils, maths is even more pointless than Latin | Simon Jenkins

Our ministers remain gripped by the cult of maths. But China's classrooms don't hold the key to the future of the British economy

There are lies, damned lies and statistics, but worse still are maths statistics. They send people mad. Elizabeth Truss, the education minister, sets off next week to see why Chinese pupils are so good at maths: indeed, why even working-class Chinese pupils are better than middle-class British ones. She and her boss, Michael Gove, believe the future of the British e...

As Labour and Lib Dem leaders flutter eyelashes, Cameron eyes the lonely hearts club | Simon Jenkins

There are some notable shifts taking place in the Commons dynamic and we could be witnessing the beginning of something meaningful, unless Nigel Farage crashes the party

Politics is about the unexpected – or sometimes not. Tonight the Liberal Democrat leader, Nick Clegg, will indicate he might form a coalition with Labour after the next election. In a hung parliament, which remains on the cards, anything can happen. Small parties enjoy a brief moment of choice, when they can flick the switch o...

If you really want to save the elephants, farm them | Simon Jenkins

The war on ivory, like the war on drugs, intensifies demand. Legalise the trade and breed the animals for their tusks

Ivory is the cocaine of south-east Asia. Millions of people demand it, and the world thinks it can stop them by banning supply. The world is wrong. Today's London conference of Cites, the world wildlife organisation, saw panjandrums from 46 countries meet with British royalty in the painted halls of Lancaster House. Previous Lancaster House conferences liberated Africans from b...

Floods happen sometimes: the blame game is for show | Simon Jenkins

Cameron may have rushed to the rescue. But the truth is the government cannot insulate us from every evil under the sun

She should be nominated as a hero of the British empire. She stood at her front gate, the Thames round her knees, and told an incredulous reporter, "Yes, we did know of the flood risk when we bought the house. We took the risk. The flood is just one of those things." The reporter was aghast. Just one of those things? He retorted in standard BBC mode: "You mean you don't blame...

How a sensible revision of flood policy was sabotaged | Simon Jenkins

The government is chaotic. It has resorted to a blame game, and allowed Somerset farmers to write the story

Where is God when He is needed? In the old days, floods were called "acts of God". He has now been supplanted by Lord Smith, the environment agency, the Treasury, Owen Paterson, the National Farmers Union (NFU) and global warming.

The current floods have shown British government at its worst, reaching a nadir yesterday in an "apology" slung in the face of the Environment Agency (EA) by th...

The Catholic church isn't the only institution to close ranks in a scandal | Simon Jenkins

The police, the NHS, the army – all suffer from a culture of denial. Yet for democracy's sake, they must reform and revive

'We need a change of culture.' Whenever I hear this I think of the Catholic church, the army, the NHS, the police or any number of British institutions. They all share a curious lack of concern for how the outside world sees their internal practices and procedures. After some scandal they may agree to a change of culture, but it is usually code for the opposite.

There is li...

The law isn't there to protect us from Dieudonné's odious views | Simon Jenkins

Our banning of Dieudonné shows that the UK has grown feeble. A robust society should be able to handle the stresses of pluralism

I am reactionary on freedom of speech. I am for it. I have no time for the weasel words of pseudo-liberalism, that freedom must sometimes be curbed to advance freedom. It is like the tyrant's censor who declares he approves of all criticism provided it is fair, constructive, offends no one and is not conducive to violence. That is free speech a la Putin. It is the mo...

Philip Seymour Hoffman and a double standard over drugs | Simon Jenkins

We turn a blind eye to an unworkable law and assume it does not apply to people like us – then take draconian vengeance on others

Anyone who saw Philip Seymour Hoffman in the film A Late Quartet could sense an accident on its way to happening. We now know that the actor and the tortured violinist he portrayed were close to the same person. Acting is a dangerous calling, pushing its practitioners back and forth over the border of unreality.

Hoffman's death has been universally greeted as a trage...