Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 15

Rishi Sunak’s new A-level exam is the HS2 of educational reform: it’ll never happen | Simon Jenkins

The rotten system is crying out for a bipartisan inquiry, not a last-minute fudge like the ‘Advanced British Standard’

Guess which policy in Rishi Sunak’s busy conference speech will never see the light of day. The answer is the “Advanced British Standard”, the exhilaratingly titled successor to the A-level. He promises it will offer more exams, more classroom time, more maths, £600m in extra cost and not arrive for 10 years. It is the HS2 of educational reform.

The reason it will disappear is bec...

Our panel’s verdict on Rishi Sunak’s speech to the Tory party conference

The prime minister has presented himself as the change candidate – will the British public buy it?

When Akshata Murty made a surprise introduction for her “fun and compassionate” husband before his first – and probably last – conference speech as leader, the tribute sounded a little like a bizarre obituary. If party members were watching the prime minister’s slow political death, it was the rest of us who were begging to be put out of our misery.

Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist

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Kemi Badenoch as next Tory leader? That would not be such a bad thing for the party | Simon Jenkins

The trade minister is showing herself to be tactical rather than strident, and pragmatic on issues such as the climate crisis

Is the Tory party ready for Kemi Badenoch? If the present leader, Rishi Sunak, loses power next year, the Tories would be wise to pause. For all the hysteria of modern Westminster, Sunak has steered his ship from a tempest into calmer waters with some dignity. But politics rarely forgives defeat. He has been an energetic and intelligent prime minister, and should surely be...

Spare these London flats the wrecking ball. But no more eyesore tower blocks please | Simon Jenkins

Whatever the outcome of this battle between developer and local authority, high-rise blocks should not be the future

The demolition of two new apartment buildings at Woolwich’s Mast Quay would be daft. The claimed reason – 26 deviations from the development’s 2012 planning permission – cannot justify planners pulling down the £36m high-rise blocks, embodied carbon and all. The developer, Comer Homes, seems to have slashed the proposed roof garden and playground, and pulled back on balconies, disa...

Even HS2's defenders are abandoning it. Rishi Sunak, it's time to follow suit | Simon Jenkins

Only political expediency has kept this terrible mistake on the rails. Pull the brakes – and save Britain billions

This week there are to be two HS2s. The first is a truly rotten infrastructure project. The second is a political icon of awesome potency. They have absolutely nothing in common.

From its conception in 2009, HS2 was a dud: a Labour government glamour project revived by the Cameron government in the hope it might counterbalance its plans for extreme local austerity. The coalition event...

When it comes to Britain’s relations with France, at least King Charles gets it | Simon Jenkins

Royalty is not elected to delve into political matters, but Charles’s visit to France suggests a friendship we urgently need

Sometimes I see the point of a king. Imagine if it had been Boris Johnson standing under the Arc de Triomphe this week, telling the French president, Emmanuel Macron, “Donnez moi un break.” Imagine Liz Truss telling Versailles “the jury’s out” on her opinion of France. There are moments in relations between nations that require the presence of heads of state – however chose...

Keir Starmer wants to rewrite the Brexit deal? Good – and he shouldn’t hold back | Simon Jenkins

The Labour leader says he wants to foster a ‘closer’ trading relationship with the EU. I recommend a return to the customs union

Keir Starmer should not be frightened. This week he admitted in Montreal that Britain’s Brexit agreement was “not a good deal” and that he wanted a “closer” trading relationship with the EU. What does he mean? He mentioned security and research, ties that Rishi Sunak has already initiated. Yet he shudders with fear at any accusation that he might favour returning to Eur...

Developers and their Tory allies are killing the high street. Only a people’s revolt can stop them now | Simon Jenkins

While local shops in countries such as France are protected, the UK is crippled by lax planning laws and sky-high business rates

High streets matter. We don’t want them to follow churches, becoming relics of a mostly dying sense of community. They should be the living hubs of villages and towns and not vanish beneath an anonymous swathe of suburban housing.

The news is that 6,000 high-street shops have closed in the past five years. The big stores are already going. Wilko has followed Debenhams an...

Forget ‘Chinese spies’, trade not espionage should be Britain’s main concern with China | Simon Jenkins

China is clearly using its trading supremacy to ignore accepted norms – but the UK has some leverage

Today’s claim that a Chinese spy in his 20s cruising the Westminster drinks circuit might pose a threat to the British state is absurd. MPs always overstate their role in foreign affairs. Boris Johnson, back in 2017 when he was foreign secretary, might have felt a macho thrill from sending an aircraft carrier to the South China Sea – where it could be sunk in an hour – but Britain’s defences are n...

Britain can recover from the self-harm of Brexit. Today’s return to the EU’s Horizon project shows how | Simon Jenkins

Polls suggest a majority of Britons regret our exit. Rejoining the scientific programme could be the start of something bigger

Is this the dawn? Have we reached the glimmer of a new beginning? Rishi Sunak’s about-turn on joining the European Union’s Horizon programme is a first note of sanity in the two and a half tortured years since Britain formally left the EU. Let it not be the last.

The story itself is miserable. Horizon is an £81bn continent-wide programme to give Europe’s scientific researc...