Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 152

Opinion directs the boot of truth at the crotch of power. Long may it sting | Simon Jenkins

After Baltimore's raucous HL Mencken died, some felt the age of the column was over. Yet today news is the endangered species

Are you Beatles or Beethoven? Chelsea or Arsenal? Mencken or Montaigne? You can supposedly tell people by their taste in fads and gurus. In the case of columnists there is a clear choice. Sensitive, cerebral, me-me writers go for Montaigne, the 16th-century sage of Bordeaux. Rat fink reporter types go for the scourge of Baltimore, HL Mencken, whose collected Prejudices ...

The cure for an ailing, ageing NHS is to cut it down to size | Simon Jenkins

Since its nationalisation, the health service has defied sensible pruning. Losing 24,000 backroom staff would be a start

Alfred, 69, "was left sleeping in a chair with dried blood on him … his clothes were not changed … soaked in urine … discharged when too weak to walk … had a heart attack on the way home". Mr D was so dehydrated at Bolton General Hospital "that his tongue was like a piece of dried leather". Mrs R "had no bath or shower in 13 weeks at Southampton hospital and was left for...

We giggle at his machismo – but Silvio Berlusconi has the last laugh | Simon Jenkins

The EU claims to be the guardian of a democratic confederacy, and treats Serbia as beyond the pale. So why appease Italy?

As belly dancers go, she was very pretty. I suggested that the dignity of the Italian state could find a crumb of comfort in that. The Italian to whom I said it was not amused. "Please, let's not even discuss it," she said. "It's too awful. I am too ashamed."

The Italian prime minister might face prosecution for buying sex from a minor, but a man is innocent until proved...

Cameron should uncap council tax and stop taking all the blame for the cuts | Simon Jenkins

The coalition is getting the blame for councillors' decisions. To stop this, David Cameron should lift Thatcher's local tax cap

Set them free. Liberate them. They are elected, so why not make them responsible? Let them take the blame. Yesterday Manchester city council announced deep cuts of 2,000 jobs or 17% of its workforce. Children's services are to be cut by 26%. Rubbish collection will go to once a fortnight, and five libraries are to close.

Who is to blame? The government, says...

All the crime map shows up is Whitehall's pointless zest for data | Simon Jenkins

Theresa May's crime map joins school league tables in its statistical fatuity. The information geeks need holding to account

I am mesmerised by Police.uk. I am mesmerised not by the website itself, which merely tells us what we knew, that the Tories did not mean it about seeking a smaller and less intrusive state. Theresa May, the home secretary, claimed this week that the nation is "entitled to know" that two cars were broken into in my street and a couple of "antisocials" took place outside ...

The west's itch to meddle is no help. Leave Egypt alone | Simon Jenkins

Our sole contribution to Muslim states wrestling with self-determination is plunging their neighbours into bloodbath and chaos

We are hypocrites. We cheer on the brave Tunisians and Egyptians as they assert the revolutionary power of the street. Hands off, we cry. Let them do it their way. It has taken a long time, but let the people get the credit and be strengthened thereby.

We gave no such licence to the Iraqis or Afghans. We presumed it was our job to dictate how they should be governed...

As secrecy and privacy become things of the past, media ethics are in a mess | Simon Jenkins

A journalist's job is to get the story, but electronic surveillance and the internet demand a new map of the boundaries

Shock disclosure – journalists sometimes behave unethically. The reptiles behave like reptiles. As they slither round the swamp, they even run out of prey, and are now consuming their own, the News of the World. Their victims are delighted. Bruised MPs jump with joy. Starlets pout. Over-sexed footballers are ecstatic. Bankers roll on the floor and kick their legs in the air. ...

Our protection from banks? A pile of ordure called Merlin | Simon Jenkins

If half the cash showered on these casinos had gone to the high street, the economy wouldn't be in such double-dip straits

It walks like double-dip, talks like double-dip, quacks like double-dip. What else are the latest figures on Britain's economic growth? The gamble recent governments have taken in bailing out banks instead of their customers to heal recession is looking ever more reckless. The VAT rise this month was foolish. The cuts in public spending, though vital to curb a public...

Gove, like Stalin, wants to tell us what history to study. Well, let me tell him | Simon Jenkins

From Canute to Thatcher, Britain is rich in stories of wisdom and folly. If only politicians could learn from others' mistakes

Michael Gove is fed up with the teaching of history. He wants it to be less fictish and more factish. At present he claims British history in schools has the wrong dates, the wrong heroes and hence, I am sure, the wrong lessons drawn. He does not care how history is taught, only what history is taught. I am sure Stalin felt the same. It is the great Govian paradox, a d...

Like all inquiries, Chilcot is a pageant, too late to matter | Simon Jenkins

These surrogate courts of law should be crisp, swift and certain. Instead they slowly ensure none spill any establishment blood

Did the earth move? Did your coffee cup shake and your corn flakes fly across the room? "Blair misled MPs on Iraq, says Goldsmith", screamed the headline. "PM shut me out of crucial discussions, says Goldsmith". Great heavens, the Chilcot inquiry is back from the realm of the undead, singing its ghostly chorus through Westminster. On Friday Tony Blair returns like...