Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 125

On the subject of political meddling, RBS and the like can shut up | Simon Jenkins

Stephen Hester wanted to turn RBS back into a normal bank but, after £45bn, the government can do what it likes

The silly response to Stephen Hester's exit as boss of RBS is to say that politicians should not meddle with banks. The truth is the opposite. Banks should not meddle with politicians.

Remember who started this. The banks in the early 2000s behaved with a recklessness I believe should still be regarded as criminal. A number went bust and ran pleading to the state, hollering that they...

From Trafalgar to Taksim, the politics of the square puts the wind up power | Simon Jenkins

Forget Field Marshal Twitter. What scares rulers like Turkey's Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are the street's wild squadrons

Why does power hate a city square? A square fields no army, commands no votes, has nowhere to go. It is just a space. Yet it is space that invites occupation, an occupation hostile to power. Hence Turkey's president felt obliged yesterday to "recapture" Taksim Square in Istanbul. It had become an alternative seat of legitimacy, a place of defiance, an ugly gesture at his majesty....

Edward Snowden and his like are vital antidotes to the surveillance state | Simon Jenkins

Counter-terrorism has inflated itself into an industry of cold-war proportions. Whistleblowers are the last bulwark of freedom

Do whistleblowers make you cheer, or feel queasy? Edward Snowden, author of the latest cyber-leak, is a cogent critic of the hysteria into which the "war on terror" has led US (and by association British) governments. But on whose authority does he reveal state secrets? Is he not a traitor, a turncoat, a tool of terror?

Snowden is no agent of a foreign power. He is no c...

NSA surveillance revelations: Osama bin Laden would love this | Simon Jenkins

The US has shown itself so paranoid in the face of possible 'al-Qaida-linked terror' that it has played right into jihadist hands

Washington has handed Osama bin Laden his last and greatest triumph. The Prism files revealed in the Guardian indicate how far his bid to undermine western values has succeeded in the 12 years since 9/11. He has achieved state intrusion into the private lives and communications of every American citizen. He has shown the self-proclaimed home of individual freedom as...

The U-turn on wind turbines won't stop their march over every hill and valley | Simon Jenkins

Once planning was the defender of the countryside. But with Cameron's lot in power, money talks and beauty is silent

There is no room for more wind turbines on the uplands of Britain. There are too many lobbyists fighting for money. Thursday's mild government U-turn on turbines may upset grant-soaked landowners, but is a lifeline to countryside campaigners. They have come to see David Cameron's planning ministers as akin to the pepper-spraying militia battling to build over Istanbul's Gezi Par...

Ed Balls is as mesmerised by the bankers as George Osborne | Simon Jenkins

Austerity has lost its credibility everywhere but London and Berlin. The shadow chancellor missed a golden opportunity

Europe is afflicted with the worst economic catastrophe since the second world war. Half the young people of the Mediterranean basin are reportedly out of work. Roughly 15% of productive capacity stands idle. Nation states are saddled with debts they cannot possibly repay. Austerity policies make the debts worse as they stifle growth. Economics is in intellectual lockdown.

Ente...

The next coronation should be a civil partnership ceremony | Simon Jenkins

This medieval ritual, moving though it is, is so overwhelmingly religious it risks diminishing the monarchy. Reform it now

Don't wait. Do it now. Long live the Queen, but Sunday's 60th anniversary of her coronation is a good moment to review this strange national ritual. Better to get a new version in place than to have a dreadful last-minute squabble come the day.

Hereditary monarchy is the fashion by which Britons at first ruled and then "embodied" their nation state. Few would nowa...

Syria and the Middle East: our greatest miscalculation since the rise of fascism | Simon Jenkins

By helping to destroy secular politics in the Middle East, the west has unleashed the Shia/Sunni conflict now tearing it apart

There could no more dreadful idea than to pour more armaments into the sectarian war now consuming Syria. Yet that is precisely what Britain's coalition government wants to do. The foreign secretary, William Hague, seemed on Monday to parody his hero Pitt the Younger by demanding "how long must we go on allowing … ?" and "what we want to see is …". Who is this we? But...

Woolwich attack: This echo chamber of mass hysteria only aids terrorists | Simon Jenkins

Perpetrators of violent acts of terror thrive on publicity – so politicians and the media need to stop giving it to them

We will not buckle to terrorism said David Cameron after the Woolwich murder on Wednesday. He then buckled. Everyone buckled. The home secretary buckled, the defence secretary buckled, the communities secretary buckled, the mayor of London buckled, the chief of police buckled, the press buckled, the BBC summoned its senior editors and they buckled. Everyone buckled.

The first...

First, David Cameron should bring his own tax havens to book | Simon Jenkins

Pressing the G8 to get tough on avoidance is hypocrisy while British dependencies like the Caymans are still in business

I cannot see the point of tax havens. Or rather, I can see the point, but not why we tolerate them. They are licensed theft from the exchequer, offshore fiscal Scud aimed directly at the nation's budget. For a decade politicians in Washington, London and elsewhere have railed against them – but done nothing.

Years ago I, by mistake, slipped an income tax voucher for March int...