Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 143

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...

Coalition hypocrisy lies behind this war on motorists | Simon Jenkins

Capped and cut back, local councils can't raise money by any other means, so it's no surprise they pick on car drivers

I do not live in Westminster, but I declare an interest in its parking policy. At evenings and weekend I drive to the gilded city regularly, regarding the libertarian freedom to park as a boon and a blessing to life in London. It is an asset alike to West End businesses, visitors and those who work unsocial hours. It leads to no noticeable gridlock. It causes no harm.

As of...

Great English Dates No 10: 1832

Why did the English not rise up in revolution like the French?

The question that should dominate the history of England in the 19th century is why it saw no imitation of the French revolution. An election in 1830 was consumed by talk of political reform, but the Tories retained a majority and their leader, the Duke of Wellington, remarked that "as long as I hold any station … I shall hold it my duty to resist" any change in the franchise.

Radical mobs took to the streets and a public clamour f...

A new Europe must be built on the ruins of the old | Simon Jenkins

Only a redrafted constitution will revive the EU: there could be no worse end to this saga than imposition of German 'discipline'

This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a cliche. Crisis spirals out of control and Armageddon moves to the brink of abyss. "Europe" is too big to fail yet too big to succeed. Each newscast is a crash course in economics, each headline an incitement to suicide. But since we are not at war and few understand what is going on, the rest cannot believe it...

The ethical fluff of St Paul's and Rowan Williams is a liberal cop-out | Simon Jenkins

Pythonesque preaching from Church of England top brass is of no practical help in this economic mess

Bishops who start losing an argument take refuge in prayer. Others take refuge in "ethics". For weeks both have been deployed in an as yet fruitless assault on the immorality of the credit crunch and capitalism generally. No stone has been left unthrown. Editorial writers have waxed eloquent and a terrible mess has been created on the steps of St Paul's. Bland has fought bland in a media...

Great English dates No 9: 1759

As the French threatened colonies across the Atlantic and in India, the British fought back to secure the foundations of the British empire

If any date signals the foundation of the British empire, it is 1759. The seven years war of 1756-63 had begun in skirmishes with the French in America. France was expanding from Canada south down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, threatening to encircle the 13 New England colonies along the east coast. In India, the collapse of the Mogul empire enabled a F...