Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 146

Great English dates: AD664

The year English Christianity made a decision that would have consequences lasting almost a millennium

In 596 the missionary Pope Gregory sent a reluctant bishop, Augustine, to the court of Ethelbert of Kent to bring the ancient Roman colony of Britannia back to Rome. Augustine was startlingly successful, swiftly converting Ethelbert and founding a cathedral at Canterbury. Pagan Saxons retained their gods only for days of the week, Tiw, Woden, Thunor and Freya. But English Christianity was...

Europe is turning back to national identity – and it's exhilarating | Simon Jenkins

The European debt crisis is a reformation moment – the EU has overreached its power and now faces a crisis of legitimacy

Perhaps I was wrong, after all. I thought Europe's governments would spend any amount of money and impose any amount of austerity to rescue any number of banks from their recklessness and folly. All banks were too big to fail. No debt was too big to bail. Europe was in the grip of a classic banker's ramp.

Yet Greece's bluffing of the high priests of the eurozone may, after a...

Call this planning reform? It's a recipe for civil war | Simon Jenkins

Eric Pickles's document speaks of ministers lost to lobbyists. Neighbourhood forums won't stop England becoming uglier

The government's great planning reform has veered way off course, and needs steering back to sanity. It responds to no national calamity, and there is no public gain to the reform itself. An updating of the system in the local government department was hijacked by a group of "practitioners", mostly builders and developers, and slid into print.

I cannot blame the developers...

Great English dates No 1: AD 410

What are the key dates in English history? Simon Jenkins kicks off a new series with the year when the Roman empire abandoned Britannia to its own fate

The true first date in English history is AD 410. That year, a letter was sent from the western Roman emperor, Honorius, to his desperate colonists in Britannia, under attack from Anglo-Saxon raiders and pleading for help. Honorius refused. They were on their own.

There are two theories of what happened next. Most historians think that...

British architecture: the baroque in Britain

The 17th-century English nobility acquired a taste for continental baroque architecture

In 1660, the Stuart court that returned from the continent with Charles II brought more than restoration, merriment and a yearning for the old ways. It brought a taste for Dutch and French architecture. The English Renaissance, begun haltingly under Queen Elizabeth, reborn under Inigo Jones but repressed during the interregnum, now found its feet.

It was not easy. The mannerist classicism of the Jacobean...

Let's find progressive ways to tax the winners in our trickle-up econom | Simon Jenkins

Blaming Britain's lack of growth on the taxation of high earners is nonsense – and totally out of step with the rest of the world

I know very few rich people who got rich to make money. They got rich because, other than spivs and gamblers, they enjoyed their work and were good at it. How much they made might be due to competition, greed, love, prestige, personal rivalry or, as JK Galbraith said of senior executives, a "warm personal gesture by an individual to himself". But there is no...

Let's find progressive ways to tax the winners in our trickle-up economy | Simon Jenkins

Blaming Britain's lack of growth on the taxation of high earners is nonsense – and totally out of step with the rest of the world

I know very few rich people who got rich to make money. They got rich because, other than spivs and gamblers, they enjoyed their work and were good at it. How much they made might be due to competition, greed, love, prestige, personal rivalry or, as JK Galbraith said of senior executives, a "warm personal gesture by an individual to himself". But there is no...

Economic growth follows demand, so give people cash to spend | Simon Jenkins

The chancellor's gamble hasn't paid off. An urgent shift in priorities is now needed if Britain isn't to slip back into recession

Forget "It's the economy, stupid." Switch to "It's demand, stupid." If the 20th-century revolution in economics meant anything, it was that unless people go out and buy things, there will be no jobs, no incomes, no growth. Governments can worry about borrowing, lending, inflation, fiscal rectitude, whatever until the cows come home – but without demand there is...

What impact did 9/11 have on the world? | The panel

Our panel assesses the decade of international upheaval that followed the al-Qaida attacks on the US

Simon Jenkins: 'The response to 9/11 was as Bin Laden must have dreamed'

No single figure since the second world war has made so profound an impact on world events as Osama bin Laden. Had the world responded to his 9/11 attack on America with moderation he would probably have disappeared, expelled from Afghanistan or killed by his Tajik enemies. Even the Taliban were known to have been shocked b...

English history: why we need to understand 1066 and all that

History is more than just isolated moments. Only with a knowledge of the complete evolution of English politics, argues Simon Jenkins, can we address the problems facing today's society

Which "bits" of English history do we need to know? Should they be Simon Schama's peasants' revolt, Indian empire and opium wars, or David Starkey's rules of chivalry? Or is the Cambridge professor Richard Evans right to dismiss "rote learning of the national patriotic narrative" out of hand, in favour of...