Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 150

These humanitarians come to Libya with missiles, and an agenda | Simon Jenkins

Rather than protecting Libyans Nato is prolonging the agony of civil war. David Cameron should think on Suez and retreat

To creep or not to creep, that is the question. Britain's Libyan war is entering its most dangerous phase. The great lie has once again been rumbled, that air power can deliver any sort of victory. The humanitarian imperative is in full cry, swamping the media and blinding strategy with daily tales of horror from the front. The mission, confused from the start, is moving...

This cult of the ruin renders England's landscape soulless. Better to rebuild | Simon Jenkins

New tomes and TV shows exult in our wrecked castles and abbeys. Why do we not bring them back to useful life?

A bad omen is at hand. The cult of the ruin is back. I mean not just the return of such modern "ruins" as the Great Depression, Liberal coalitions or royal weddings, but ancient ones too. Television is furiously walking, digging and rescuing relics of the past. The British Museum recalls the venues of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and, perhaps, whatever the RAF leaves standing of Libya...

My advice for the happiness lobby? Start with drugs | Simon Jenkins

It's a quest that has taxed the likes of Billy Graham and the Dalai Lama. The answer's in local politics and narcotics legislation

Yes, folks, happiness days are here again, again. A new campaign called Action for Happiness was launched on Tuesday. It was also launched, I distinctly recall, back in January, and often before by such luminaries as David Cameron, the Dalai Lama, Billy Graham, Dale Carnegie and Aristotle. You can ridicule happiness, bash it on the head, stamp it under foot, but...

Nick Clegg, you chose to be coalition arm-candy, so accept being a punchbag | Simon Jenkins

Instead of bewailing his lot, Nick Clegg should sniff the daffodils and be grateful he missed the golden era of political venom

Oh dear. Nick Clegg has had another Shylock moment, bewailing his lot to the New Statesman. Has a Lib Dem not hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? "If you prick us," he wails, "do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

The short answer is no, not if you are a minority leader in a coalition. Then you are...

Social immobility is built into the way Britain lives and learns | Simon Jenkins

No industry, no jobs, no incentive – the idea that Nick Clegg's internships will change the towns I visited last week is laughable

If David Cameron and Nick Clegg are really worried about social mobility they would not have raised VAT. The greatest aid to social mobility is money. The greatest redistributor of money is growth. The greatest curb on growth is restricted demand. The coalition "social mobility strategy" reminded me of the entire Congolese army being promoted one rank to make it...

By merely bolstering the weaker side, we are prolonging Libya's civil war | Simon Jenkins

The interventionists lack the courage of their convictions. If they really want Gaddafi gone, they should just get on with it

Welcome to 21st-century war, liberal style. You do not fix an objective and use main force to get it. You nuance words, bomb a little, half assassinate, scare, twist, spin and make it up as you go along. Nato's Libyan campaign is proving a field day for the new interventionism. Seemingly desperate to scratch another Muslim itch, Britain's laptop bombardiers and their...

Britain's universities must now declare their independence | Simon Jenkins

The student fees policy is absurd. Higher education should kick its addiction to state cash and call the coalition's bluff

As Oxford University's bigwigs and donors cheered their boat race victory from their launch last Saturday, their delight was interrupted by a blatant fundraising speech from the vice-chancellor, Andrew Hamilton. Now, surely, he said, they should donate. I hope they give not a penny until that university has found the courage to face down the government on fees and gone...

Britain has long been a poor venue for protest – Saturday won't change this | Simon Jenkins

This outdated ritual of banners, pushchairs, linked hands and incantations won't turn Trafalgar into Tahrir

Trafalgar Square is not Tahrir Square. London is not Cairo. George Osborne's budget is not the repressive one-party diktat of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt but the product of a democratic parliament. The desire of certain Labour MPs and the organisers of Saturday's anti-cuts rally to identify themselves with "recent protests in the Middle East and north Africa" is worse than silly. It dumbs...

Budget 2011: Guardian columnists' verdict | The panel

From the deficit to green issues, did George Osborne's budget deliver?

Jackie Ashley: Welfare

What a brave new world George Osborne promised for small businesses, entrepreneurs and city whizz-kids. His budget speech fizzed with new measures to reduce regulation and encourage investment – well, no one denies we need more jobs. But as he hailed "the march of the makers", "start-up Britain" and "the home of enterprise", I was reminded of that speech Neil Kinnock made back in 1983, warning of the d...

David Cameron is finding it's just as hard to carry the home front | Simon Jenkins

It took just 24 hours for the media to start talking splits and exits over Libya. Cameron's gamble looks bigger by the day

It is whiz-bang time again, deeply thoughtful whiz-bangs. The prime minister feels he needs a carefully considered kapow. It is a moment for roar, zoom, zap, shock, awe, flames, body parts, front pages, mad dogs, all in sober parliamentary moderation. The boy in the bunker has been told by the boy in the bomber that he can win. The story is the same since time immemorial. ...