Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 128

The election of a new pope is God's Olympics: global publicity, weeping crowds – and no real meaning | Simon Jenkins

The papal election matters only to those made miserable by the church's reactionary leadership

Papal elections are God's Olympics. The splendour, the global publicity, the weeping crowds, the human drama, the race to the finish, all dazzle the senses and beg interpretive meaning. There is none. The conclave is showmanship. Those who believe the pope to be God's minister on Earth must regard his choice as no more than an act of God. Those who believe otherwise see him as leader of a large but d...

Huhne and Pryce fell hard because we wanted them to | Simon Jenkins

The jailing of Chris Huhne and Vicky Pryce reflects our inability to punish political figures for their public failings

Liars, hypocrites, the louses of parliament, the mighty fallen. Strip-search them in jail. Humiliate their families. Stick a lens up their noses. We know where they live. Let them wallow in their heinous crime. The reaction to the Huhne-Pryce conviction has been sickening. It has nothing to do with speeding or lying about speeding, hardly rare offences. It manifests something...

More spending? The coalition may as well build a bridge to the moon | Simon Jenkins

David Cameron and Vince Cable are both wrong. Infrastructure isn't the answer and nor is QE – money in pockets is

Why not build a bridge to the moon? It will restore confidence, "kickstart infrastructure spending", create thousands of jobs and boost British scientific and engineering expertise. A moon base could exploit rare mineral resources and even relieve the housing crisis. A Humberside portal for the bridge will help close the north-south gap. The prestige gain for business would be imme...

Ignore their howls of protest. If bankers leave the country, it would be no loss | Simon Jenkins

They took home unheard of sums. Only in Britain do ministers dance to their tune. But public fury cannot be defied for ever

The peasants are revolting across Europe. They want bankers' blood and mean to get it. Until now, public response to the credit crunch has been one of general bafflement and wrist-slapping. The banks persuaded the world it was all an act of fate. As it was, they were too big to fail and their leaders too saintly to atone for it. For four years, British banks were showered...

History teaching? Karl Marx would agree with Michael Gove – and so do I | Simon Jenkins

We would not study plays from the end backwards, so why mess with the story of our nation?

Every argument in English history re-enacts the civil war. Cavaliers fight roundheads, Catholics fight Protestants, right wing fights left, tradition fights change. Echoing down the hall of time is the same old question: whose side were you on at Marston Moor?

The trouble with today's row over Michael Gove's history curriculum is that coats have turned. The "progressive" roundheads of Labour's 2007 c...

Beppe Grillo's antics may yet shake the whole European system | Simon Jenkins

From Italy to Eastleigh, the economics of self-flagellation have set off a wave of wildcat populism, with unpredictable results

Oh happy day. The Italian election result is a triumph for democracy. "No pope, no government, no police chief," went yesterday's viral tweet, hailing the arrival in Rome of "punk politics". The outcome is an antidote, not just to Italy's corrupt politics, but to the dogma of austerity that now has Europe's economy by the throat. The only way of loosening its grip is...

Juries? It's time they went the way of the ducking stool | Simon Jenkins

The soap opera that is the Vicky Pryce trial shows the archaic rituals of our courts to be little more than legal parlour games

Can we declare the emperor naked at last? Is it possible that the exasperation of Mr Justice Sweeney with the Vicky Pryce jury might take us where home secretaries, human dignity, common sense and the 21st century have together not dared to tread?

Some aspects of the British way of life are immune to reason. If you want a cheap cheer on Any Questions?, refer reverentia...

Forget fairness. This mansion tax is ideological cowardice | Simon Jenkins

A fair extension of the council tax would be easy, lucrative, progressive – and anathema to people like Balls and Cable

How can Ed Miliband be so right, and so wrong? The answer is by listening to Ed Balls on mansion tax. Balls is a long-standing apostle of Treasury brutalism, who capped and abused the local property tax for so long that he now wants a new one. He has chosen one so ham-fisted there is little chance of it being introduced.

Political archaeologists will gaze on the current Britis...

The detail of Ed Miliband's mansion tax is daft | Simon Jenkins

Tycoons inflating London property prices should pay more tax, but the money should go to local councils – not the Treasury

Ed Miliband's support for a mansion tax is sane and equitable. He wants a tax of 1% on the extra value of any house above £2m, embracing some 70,000 properties. These are mostly in the Greater London area, where the top H band – beginning at roughly £900,000 in today's money – no longer relates to reality.

The London property market is wildly inflated, compared with the res...

Freedom doesn't simply mean letting it all hang out | Simon Jenkins

We don't want a society in which Page 3, or Beckham's bulge, are banned. But self-restraint is a mark of civilisation

The camera glides down David Beckham's torso from muscled shoulder and stubbled chin, to linger on quivering pectorals. Pecs, I gather, are in and biceps out. The lens then fondles the elastic strip of the Armani briefs before clamping the eye on the bulge of concealed genitals and depilated zone. It then skims the tanned thigh before running out of steam somewhere down th...