Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 13

British politics is rotting from the bottom up: pity our crisis-hit local councils | Simon Jenkins

Starved of powers and funds and then belittled by ministers, the collapse of town hall democracy is a scandal unfolding in real time

Every review of Britain 2023 says the same. The country is not being well run. From policing to care homes, from postal services to sewage spills, from youth clubs to potholes, everywhere is failure. Small wonder just 20% of Britons now have any faith in their national politicians, one of the lowest figures in a western democracy.

Nowhere is this decline more evident...

Of course Michelle Mone should be thrown out of the Lords, but others enabled her: turf them out too | Simon Jenkins

The cronyism and irresponsibility in government during the pandemic cannot go unpunished. Let the reckoning begin now

The Michelle Mone affair stinks. It shows that, under Boris Johnson, the British government was unfit for purpose, and is scarcely better today. While the Covid inquiry descends into a lawyers’ carnival, the PPE procurement scandal festers on.

In the spring of 2020, when the pandemic first broke, Wales’s first minister, Mark Drakeford, announced that there was “PPE in the system fo...

Housing policy in Britain is a chaotic shambles. Thank God for nimbys, I say | Simon Jenkins

Without them the green belt would have been ravaged, when what’s really needed is new ideas and vision for brownfield sites

Michael Gove is right. Essential to a true democracy is the idea that local communities should have some control over their surroundings. They must not have change rammed down their throats just so someone can make money. The great cynicism of Brexit was the cry “take back control”. The government took back control only to give it all to themselves, to deny it to national an...

Rishi Sunak’s week of chaos reflects the state of his party. There’s only one answer: an election | Simon Jenkins

Today his appearance at the Covid inquiry, tomorrow his failing Rwanda bill. The PM – and the Tories – are disintegrating

Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad. Future students of British politics may yet write theses on Rishi Sunak’s upcoming week. It starts today with bizarre torture over his 2020 Covid performance, dives on Tuesday into a shambolic vote on his Rwanda bill and may well end with a crazed plot to topple him. All three events reflect the collapse of the central institut...

Return the Parthenon marbles. The British Museum has too much stuff anyway | Simon Jenkins

These relics from the fountainhead of European culture don’t belong in a cold, grey Bloomsbury chamber

The Parthenon marbles row is beyond silly. Rishi Sunak screeches “Mine, mine” like a child in a playground. He refuses a cup of tea with the Greek prime minister, Kyriakos Mitsotakis. The leader of the opposition laughs. The nation yawns – polls show over half are happy to see the marbles returned and just above 20% want them to stay. Any civilised Briton knows they should be displayed where the...

Prepare for this general election to be the most toxic ever, thanks to Farage and Reform UK | Simon Jenkins

Immigration is not a top issue, yet both the Tories and Labour are focused on it – and the insurgent party is ready to capitalise

Next year’s general election in Britain could be the most toxic in decades. Two things, Reform UK and immigration, seem certain to plague debate on the political right. The latest polls show the Tories on 21% and Reform up from 2% in 2019 to 10% now. Immigration is not the biggest electoral issue for voters, ranking behind the economy and health, but it is totemic for ...

Argentinian firebrand Javier Milei is right about one thing: British sovereignty of the Falklands must end | Simon Jenkins

The Conservatives’ stubborn stance on the islands’ future is merely a refusal to let go of our last spark of military glory

The Falkland Islands are the Parthenon marbles of Britain’s diplomacy. They bring out the silliest antics in what passes for its “role on the world stage”.

The election of a new populist leader in Argentina made the reopening of the Falklands issue a near certainty, and so it has proved. The bizarre figure of Javier Milei may not be on the world stage for long, but he did pa...

Napoleon and The Crown are travesties: there is no ‘artistic licence’ to distort history | Simon Jenkins

In a sick world, it is dangerous for film-makers to fabricate and embellish in the name of entertainment

We’ve made a great movie. It’s called January 2021 and it shows how Donald Trump really was cheated out of the White House and Joe Biden really did tamper with the Georgia ballot boxes. In one amazing scene you see it was Mike Pence who encouraged the march on the Capitol to discredit Trump. The pope then tells Trump he won. We got the guys from The Crown to make it and it’s really moving.

Don’...

Every week brings a fresh HS2 scandal. It’s time to shut it down – all of it | Simon Jenkins

In an astonishing white paper, Rishi Sunak rips into the project he once lavishly funded. But he doesn’t go far enough

The most astonishing government document I have ever read sits on my desk. It is called Network North: Transforming British Transport and it purports to explain why Rishi Sunak cancelled half the HS2 project last month. In fact, it does not explain anything. It is an angry rant, tearing the entire HS2 project to bits: ridiculing, smashing and intellectually humiliating it.

The whi...

When the solution to your problem is David Cameron, you know you’re in deep trouble | Simon Jenkins

The former PM is back in the cabinet after Suella Braverman’s sacking. It goes to show how few options Rishi Sunak has left

Good riddance. Suella Braverman should never have been home secretary. She was appointed by Liz Truss and then Rishi Sunak for two bad reasons. One was in return for her support in their leadership campaigns. The other was to have a rightwing voice in the cabinet. Braverman has been sacked not for pressuring a senior police chief to cancel a protest. She has gone for infuria...