Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 119

The days of believing spy chiefs who say 'Trust us' are over | Simon Jenkins

The world now faces total electronic penetration, with huge power to those who control it. After Edward Snowden, we would be deluded to accept any assurances

Believe it or not, journalists can keep secrets. Nor do they keep any old secrets. They keep state and security secrets. In the last six months the journalists to whom the NSA-GCHQ archive was passed by Edward Snowden have kept more secrets safe than the entire Anglo-American intelligence community did in a decade. But then the trouble wi...

The bloody disaster of Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan is laid bare | Simon Jenkins

Bombs and militia violence make clear the folly of Britain's wars – the removal of law and order from a nation is devastating

Forty-three people died on Friday in clashes between militias in Libya, as did 22 on Sunday from bombs in Iraq. In Helmand, a return of the Taliban to power is now confidently expected. Why should we care? Why should it feature on our news?

The answer is that we helped to bring it about. Britain's three foreign wars in the past decade were uninvited military intervention...

Why should Britain build new towns when it already has great cities? | Simon Jenkins

Awarding prizes for the urbanisation of the countryside makes no sense while existing cities are given Cinderella status

I still wake at night sweating over the time at school when I came bottom in art. The teacher felt he should embrace town planning and told the class to design a city. We were each given a large sheet of paper with a wavy line across it for a river. We were issued with rulers, compasses and set squares.

I was nonplussed. Others were beavering away with grids and circles while...

David Cameron should cut the foreign jaunts and focus on the 2015 election | Simon Jenkins

This is a critical point for the Tory leader. He should be fixing his campaign plans, but instead he's breaking every record for global wanderlust

When in trouble, scram. This is not the best maxim for a politician with his back to the wall, but for David Cameron it is understandable. His ICM poll rating has lost the shine of economic recovery and has reverted to the eight-point deficit of last February. The shires are rebelling, and Labour's Ed Miliband is surging. Small wonder the Northolt d...

Typhoon Haiyan: the pretence that there's always some way out | Simon Jenkins

The craving to help is the most benign human instinct and can't be suppressed. But some things are beyond our control

The horror of the Philippines typhoon evokes that of another recent human tragedy, the civil war in Syria. The pictures are similar, fleeing families, stunned, pathetic children. We see people enduring unimaginable privation through no cause of their own. The disasters are different, one natural, the other manmade. Yet we look at them and yearn to be empowered. We long to help....

Cities are cool, unpredictable and hard to control: Russell Brand should run for mayor | Simon Jenkins

They are our future states, electing dynamic leaders and welcoming new politics – as the win by New York's Bill de Blasio shows

If Russell Brand and Jeremy Paxman are so keen on a new politics, why don't they run for mayor? Mayors are direct democracy. They are cool. They do things and have to account for them. Mayoralty is the perfect outlet for a couple of old fogeys moaning on television that voting isn't what it used to be.

New York has now ended 20 years of Republican mayors and voted in B...

Ed Miliband's living wage is as naive as his energy price freeze | Simon Jenkins

This Heath-like market intervention would create bureaucratic chaos – the only jobs to benefit would be those in the civil service

If you are desperate, offer money. The old maxims are the best. But even the murky world of giveaway politics would see Ed Miliband's subsidised "living wage" as an odd gimmick. If poor people are short of money through no fault of their own, surely they should all be given money. Today Miliband offered just a lucky few the benefit of his Battersea speech, drenched...

Britain's response to the surveillance scandal should ring every alarm bell | Simon Jenkins

In America even the NSA admits reform is needed, but David Cameron expects Britain to accept GCHQ spying on us

What separates a necessary defender of the British state and a Stasi in the making? Seventy world human rights organisations today write to the British prime minister, deploring his response to recent revelations of what his spies have been up to. His response, in their view, has been "to condemn rather than to celebrate investigative journalism".

David Cameron's remarks have been extr...

The Red Cross needs to reclaim its hijacked neutrality | Simon Jenkins

As it turns 150, the ICRC must work to reassert its reputation – undermined by Blair's wars and political adventurism

Polio has broken out in Syria. What are we going to do about it? There are refugees starving in the Sahara and drowning off Italy. Shias are being massacred in Iraq, Congolese are being raped, Egyptians tortured, Roma trafficked, Pashtun villagers drone-bombed. You can't stand idly by. Do something.

This week is the 150th anniversary of the forming of the International Committee...

Money sloshing about the HS2 rail link could be better spent elsewhere | Simon Jenkins

Tories can blame Labour for the line's demise, use the billions on far more useful rail and road links – and reap a publicity bonanza

An Amerindian tribe, when about to be attacked, was reputed to haul its treasure – gold, tents and wives – on to the battlefield and burn them in front of the enemy. Overawed at such a display of wealth, the enemy fled.

This appears to be David Cameron's approach to high-speed trains. Britain's commercial rivals will gasp at his extravagance and throw up their ha...