Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 133

Cromarty may have gone, but now we have Spanglish | Simon Jenkins

Dialect can't be saved any more than the families that use it can be frozen in time. Instead, enjoy the creation of new voices

Bobby Hogg of Cromarty has died at the age of 92. His death was not neglected on the slopes of Millbuie or shores of Avoch Bay, especially since the death last year of his brother, Gordon. They were the last two speakers of the Cromarty dialect, on the wild Black Isle of the Moray Firth. With them goes another British tongue, surviving only in a phrase book and a few p...

British soldiers are dying in Afghanistan to win the war of Whitehall | Simon Jenkins

Only one battle matters to the Ministry of Defence – the battle for resources. In this the Taliban is not an enemy, but an ally

Next week Nato defence ministers meet in Brussels, reportedly to start planning an Afghan army "retraining mission" next year. Start planning? What have they been doing for over a decade? When will spades be called spades and retreats retreats?

Afghanistan has become another war of the Spanish succession, its cause long forgotten by the opponents but an unending parade...

Don't vilify Nick Clegg, a man doomed by circumstance | Simon Jenkins

I'm as baffled as ever as to what the Lib Dems are about. But Clegg, their leader, has performed as well as could be expected

Tolstoy was right about Nick Clegg. After a moment of free will after the 2010 election, he was trapped in the vice of historical necessity. He is like Kutusov at the battle of Borodino, "a simple, modest and therefore truly great figure" who has given Britain two and a half years of political stability. He should be thanked, not vilified.

In April 2010 Clegg w...

Council tax: the easy way to make mansion-dwellers pay | Simon Jenkins

Adding further bands to this locally raised tax would be fair and effective. But our politicians lack the guts

Vince Cable, Liberal Democrat hero, is most odd. He quotes Keynes on boosting demand, yet serves in a government that suppresses it. He wants to lend to business, yet pours money into banks that simply hoard it. Strangest of all, he calls for a "mansion tax" when there is one already. It is called the council tax, and in Wales it even has a "mansion" band I. H...

History as fantasy is no substitute for rigorous truth | Simon Jenkins

Whether it's Richard III's corpse, Jesus's wife or King Arthur's castle, to be seduced by myth is to flirt with fanaticism

Did Jesus marry Mary Magdalene and have children? Was Richard III a regicide or a good king? Did Neanderthals reoccupy Spain 40,000 years ago? Who was King Arthur? Does history know? Does it matter?

The discovery of a papyrus fragment suggesting Jesus had a wife is certainly a good story. So was the recent "discovery", or rediscovery, of a "Jesus family tomb" by robot camer...

It's judicial machismo that jails women like Sarah Catt | Simon Jenkins

The harm done to society by needlessly sending women to prison far outweighs their crime: in this, Britain is medieval

The case reported on Monday of Sarah Catt cannot evoke much sympathy. Having overstepped the 24-week limit for an abortion, she bought a drug from India, self-aborted and disposed of the foetus, possibly within a week of term. She believed its father to be her lover and wanted to conceal it from her family. A Leeds judge, Mr Justice Cooke, sent her to prison for eight yea...

Hillsborough shows it's time for elected police commissioners | Simon Jenkins

If the public head of Sheffield police had been accountable to voters we may have avoided the 23 years of cover-ups

My heart sank. Not another gargantuan report on another debacle in the state's guardianship of the public realm. Not hundreds more witnesses, thousands more pages and millions more pounds on lawyers, all to a chorus of righteous outrage from that proxy of postmodern democracy, the public inquiry.

Then I read the report itself, on the 1989 Hillsborough disaster. We k...

Hijacking Olympic glory for political gain is dangerous | Simon Jenkins

I love sport, but the media's pop psychology and UK politicians' bellowing patriotism has cheapened the athletes' achievement

Can I have my brain back now? I enjoyed the Olympics, and my impression is that most Britons did so too. Holidaying at home, I noticed people in pubs and shops delighting in unusual celebrities and unusual challenges, especially from the Paralympians. With Bradley Wiggins' success in the Tour de France and Andy Murray's in New York, it made for a satisfying summer of sp...

Planning policy: Don't blame the countryside for our lack of housing | Simon Jenkins

Britain is desperately inefficient in its land use, and there are still no measures to bring empty property back on the market

The government's learning curve on planning is like an ant climbing a mountain. Desperate for someone to blame for the lack of growth, David Cameron has fallen back on the Margaret Thatcher's old bogey, local government, and the bugbear of planning control. Last year he tried to nationalise development control, in the most cack-handed fashion, and was beaten back....

What a reshuffle. It's the return of Brown and Blair | Simon Jenkins

David Cameron can wail, but he is the real ditherer – ever more Tony Blair to George Osborne's Gordon Brown

The prime minister promised at the weekend that his reshaped cabinet would "cut through the dither" impeding Britain's recovery. The reshuffle, he implied, would send a thunderclap of authority echoing across the land.

So what happened? David Cameron decided that he would not move any of those responsible for the supposed dither. He would not change the chancellor, George Osborne, or...