Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 142

Christopher Hitchens: a fearless master-stylist and a pain in the neck | Simon Jenkins

Amid the noisome banality of wall-to-wall news, Hitchens proved passionate conviction and oratory could still draw a crowd

Christopher Hitchens was a pain in the neck. When I last debated with him it was in New York. He stumbled late on stage to draw attention to himself, cigarette and drink in hand, uttering oaths like a prohibition hack. The identikit Trot of our early friendship had became a rabid Bushite defending the Iraq war. He demanded to know how I could love Saddam Hussein so much...

The cause of this recession? Economic pundits ignoring history's voice | Simon Jenkins

As long as factional interests like bankers or economists override common sense, there will be another crash

The Queen, reported the Daily Mail, was wearing a speckled cream suit and matching hat. Her Majesty was at the London School of Economics, listening to a professor, Luis Garicano, talk about the credit crunch. "It's awful," she said suddenly. "Why did nobody see it coming?"

For three years I have pondered the Queen's question, and the answer. (LSE was institutionally flummoxed; a year...

Europe's hopeless last stand in defence of the single currency | Simon Jenkins

Bashing Britain may make Eurocrats feel good, but Cameron was right to stand aloof from a treaty that will surely fail

Nick Clegg's finger cannot have hovered long over his suicide belt at the weekend. He could have blasted the coalition to smithereens and forced a general election. But that would have blown David Cameron back to power and left the Liberal Democrats a pool of blood on the pavement. Had Cameron signed another European treaty, he would have been legally bound to a referendum...

The law on murder is most foul. Kenneth Clarke should reform it | Simon Jenkins

The public and the legal profession want change. It would be a tragedy if the justice minister is thwarted by his peers

The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, should beware of a report published this week advising a change to the law on murder. He has been mugged four times already in the dark alley that passes for law reform. He gets no support from his leader, his colleagues, his party, the opposition or the media. They hurl at him the hobgoblins of prejudice, fear, conservatism...

Welcome to the post-digital world, an exhilarating return to civility – via Facebook and Lady Gaga | Simon Jenkins

The web is not a destination in itself but a route map to somewhere real – we're coming together again

Where is your post-digital presence? What is on your techno-horizon? Don't tell me you are still putting e- and i- in front of your product or talking "platforms", like some noughties nerd. That is so yesterday.

Ever since I was spectacularly wrong about the internet I have fought shy of futurology. I cringe to recall that in the mid-90s I dismissed it as a technological flash in the pan...

Christmas is a shot of uncomplicated joy | Simon Jenkins

This break from the harsh rhythm of life offers an interlude when contact is re-established with neighbours, home and hearth

My Christmas favourite is Christmas itself, its lit streets and decorated homes; its food, songs and music. For me it holds no religious import, but only the most hardened cynics could turn their back on this annual celebration of happiness. Christmas is the world's one moment of licensed pleasure, when custom requires us to behave, however briefly, as sociable human...

Osborne's misplaced trust in banks is a risk that has failed | Simon Jenkins

A wise chancellor would have pleaded with people to go out and spend. Lending-led recovery does not happen

Now we know. George Osborne is an old corporatist lefty at heart. He has led from the front and kept his nerve. He has won the central argument of British politics, that no country can afford to be casual about its debts. The coalition has not spooked the markets or sent interest payments soaring. Plenty of people, notably Labour, wanted the chancellor to take that risk. The state of...

It is not inevitable that the EU – or democracy – will survive this mess

Europe may well muddle through with technocrats and tighter straitjackets, but the rule of the people must be guarded

Are we all doomed? America's fiscal democracy this week collapsed in disarray. The Arab spring ran out of steam. Emergency regimes have taken power in Greece and Italy, while Germany could not sell a third of its bonds. Salvation, according to Europe's desperate "leader", José Manuel Barroso, can only lie in "stronger governance in the euro area, both in discipline and in...

Only builders will profit from Cameron's sub-prime homes | Simon Jenkins

Using public money to back mortgages sends out a toxic message. The cash should be used on housing for the poor

After the SS British Economy hit an iceberg three years ago, survivors were hauled from the freezing sea aboard the good ship Cameron. They assumed he'd be a more reliable helmsman. So what should they make of their new captain deciding to hurl his vessel at full speed towards the self-same iceberg?

David Cameron announced on Monday that he wants to "revive people's hopes and dreams...

Wild flowers are nature's anarchists. Yet today even weeds must conform | Simon Jenkins

Plants have evolved their own class system. Those of the countryside are treasured, and those 'in the wrong place' villified

We all find solace in flowers. I go when times are hard to the wild dune church of Aberdaron in north Wales, where is pinned up (or was) a list of flowers that battle against the wind in the graveyard outside. Here is an uplifting array of thrift, vetch, yarrow, mayweed, lady's bedstraw, rest harrow, bird's foot trefoil and dozens more that toss and chatter like...