Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 139

Politics Weekly podcast: George Galloway and the government's worst week

George Galloway won a landslide victory in the Bradford West byelection this week with more than 56% of the vote. The constituency often bucks national voting trends - but the result has stunned Labour, who held the seat for nearly 40 years. The Conservatives lost a bigger proportion of their vote than Labour and the Lib Dems lost their deposit, so it was an unhappy night for all the major parties.

It rounded off a bizarre week in Westminster that began with a cash-for-access scandal which...

Tories' long and winding road to sensible planning | Simon Jenkins

At last the government has reined in the cowboy lobbyists and allowed urban renewal to trump rural development

The final redraft of last year's cowboy raid by lobbyists on English town and country planning suggests that the Tories have narrowly rescued themselves from becoming not so much the nasty party as the ugly one.

What last summer read like a builders' manifesto has been replaced with proper planning guidance. The new document is a vast relief. It restores the concept, central to...

'Cash-for-policy' boast is a deep offence against democracy | Simon Jenkins

Cameron and Osborne must have been aware of what was going on – even if they were not privy to Cruddas's earthy style

The chief mystery in the latest cash-for-access scandal is how Peter Cruddas was ever appointed Tory treasurer and doorkeeper to Downing Street influence for a donation of a mere £1.2m. For a rich City dealer and one-time Monaco resident, he was an accident waiting to happen. David Cameron and George Osborne should have demanded £10m at least.

Once again the poison of ambition h...

'Cash-for-policy' boast is a deep offence against democracy

Cameron and Osborne must have been aware of what was going on – even if they were not privy to Cruddas's earthy style

The chief mystery in the latest cash-for-access scandal is how Peter Cruddas was ever appointed Tory treasurer and doorkeeper to Downing Street influence for a donation of a mere £1.2m. For a rich City dealer and one-time Monaco resident, he was an accident waiting to happen. David Cameron and George Osborne should have demanded £10m at least.

Once again the poison of ambition h...

Margaret Thatcher's biggest debt was to Argentina's navy | Simon Jenkins

If not for Alfredo Astiz, 30 years ago Britain would have lost the Falkland Islands and Thatcher her political career

Among this summer's Olympics and jubilees, Britons will celebrate the last time a British army actually won a war, 30 years ago on the Falklands. That is appropriate. But they are unlikely to read how it was really won. As in so many conflicts, victory lay not with the talents of the winners but with the mistakes of the losers. It was Argentina's mistake three decades ago this ...

Budget 2012: This may be the last great moment for the Tory-Lib Dem accord | Simon Jenkins

Nick Clegg knows he has to break loose from David Cameron soon. The coalition's radicalism must be crammed into this budget

I am starting to like coalition government. Gone are the days when budgets were conceived and brought to term in purdah, when anyone who revealed a dot or comma was clapped in irons. Today's budget is the result of the most promiscuous political orgy of the year. We have seen cabinet ministers openly quarrelling, Tories with Liberal Democrats, left with right, and all...

Budget 2012: this may be the last great moment for the Tory-Lib Dem accord | Simon Jenkins

Nick Clegg knows he has to break loose from David Cameron soon. The coalition's radicalism must be crammed into this budget

I am starting to like coalition government. Gone are the days when budgets were conceived and brought to term in purdah, when anyone who revealed a dot or comma was clapped in irons. Today's budget is the result of the most promiscuous political orgy of the year. We have seen cabinet ministers openly quarrelling, Tories with Liberal Democrats, left with right, and all...

Universities need the guts to break this Faustian pact with research | Simon Jenkins

As long as university academics claim privileged public sector status, the agony of their bondage to the state will continue

British universities have become spineless lackeys of central government, lickspittles at the trough of subsidy. They plead they are a "golden investment" in the nation's future, yet they cry "higher purpose" when this claim is challenged. Those who went to university, including captains of industry, go along with this confidence trick to justify the advantage they...

Sorry Cameron, but Air Force One is no place for a British prime minister | Simon Jenkins

While David Cameron enjoys some portentous posing in Obama's jet, mice gnaw at the fabric of his government

Washington hospitality is dangerously intoxicating to British prime ministers. Tony Blair never recovered from his first "Washington high" in 1998. Swivel-eyed after a White House banquet, he came home putting out feelers for a more palatial London residence and a "Blair Force One" jet. American presidents could do no wrong after that. Now David Cameron is doing even better, with an a

In Afghanistan it's lies that are really killing our soldiers

The phoney oratory of British national security so beloved of Cameron and his generals has lost all contact with reality

Sometimes they have to lie. As the British death toll in Afghanistan rises past 400, every news item tells of reverses, mistakes and a desperation to withdraw. Someone has to hold the line. Those whose job is to fight and possibly die for their country need to believe they do so for a purpose. A nation bidding them to die needs it too.

Hence the prime minister has to assert t...