Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 16

Theft isn’t the only problem facing the cash-strapped British Museum – and I have some answers | Simon Jenkins

The museum’s sprawling collections should be consolidated, with items sold to fund much-needed developments

Museums are essentially phoney. Few of their objects were made for them but rather to be owned, used, enjoyed and traded. They were not meant to be wrenched from their context by fair means or foul, then put in a glass case or buried in giant state hoards, most of them never again to see the light of day.

The British Museum is such a beloved institution that no one ever asks what it is about...

Is Braverman in or out? It doesn’t matter: what’s broken is the Home Office itself | Simon Jenkins

Rishi Sunak is reportedly facing growing pressure to sack the home secretary. But the troubles go much deeper than that

If you had hired as many different builders in the past five years as Britain has hired home secretaries, you would assume your house was deeply flawed. Yet the latest, Suella Braverman, one of four in that time, has managed 10 months under Rishi Sunak and is reportedly under pressure to be sacked. It is hard to imagine how a senior minister in a controversial department can ope...

Yes, rebuild the Crooked House brick by brick – and buttress local planning, too | Simon Jenkins

Communities need more power to protect assets such as historic pubs: the centralised system too often favours developers

Whose fault is the demise of the Crooked House in Himley, Staffordshire, now a pile of bricks? The nation is up in arms. MPs, peers, mayors, editors, villagers and about 18,000 people on a Facebook group are all gnashing their teeth. Even the demolition contractor, whose digger was actually booked before the pub caught fire, is embarrassed. Many of these worthies may not have k...

The weather is terrible and the forecasts worse – why do we bother with holidays in August? | Simon Jenkins

The British summer is still based on pre-industrial events. It’s time a government had the guts to shake up the holiday year

If you had booked an August holiday in Britain 10 days ago, then heard the weather forecast, you probably would have taken the first train to Gatwick. The forecast for the following week was awful – for storms, clouds, rain and “unseasonably cold” weather. In other words, another typical August.

In the event the forecast was wildly inaccurate. Where I was on the Welsh coast,...

Sunak’s plan for carbon capture is good news: he shouldn't muddy it with party politics | Simon Jenkins

Consensus on tackling the climate crisis is what’s needed now – and direct action against CO2 must be the next move

For as long as the United Kingdom needs to use oil and gas, we should be making an effort to capture any resulting CO2 and store it. That clearly makes sense. It also makes sense to produce our own oil and gas, so we are less beholden to exporters (though of course ours, too, would be sold on the international markets).

So far, so good for Rishi Sunak’s twofold announcement today in ...

Even in the heat of war, there must be dialogue. To save lives, a new grain deal with Putin must be struck | Simon Jenkins

The result of his blockage of food exports could be mass starvation in poor countries. We should do all we can to avoid that

The recent collapse of the Russia-Ukraine grain deal spells disaster for millions. The year-old deal has allowed 1,000 ships to export food products from Ukraine by sea, including 80% of the grain going to the World Food Programme. The biggest recipients of Ukrainian grain have been China, Spain, Turkey and Italy, but 57% of it went to 14 countries currently defined as most...

The answer to Britain’s housing crisis lies in its towns and cities – not the countryside | Simon Jenkins

The Conservatives are right about making urban areas denser, but their proposed planning reform is an undemocratic mess

Yes, Britain’s housing market is in a mess. No, that does not mean 75 years of town planning should be torn up just to win the Tories a few more seats. Today’s speeches on housebuilding by the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove, and his boss, Rishi Sunak, are in part sensible, in part not.

They are right that there is no “need” for extensive new building over Britain’s countrys...

What do you get if greed is rife, government stupid and planning abused? Canary Wharf and other such horrors | Simon Jenkins

As big firms exit what came to be a symbol of the office age, we can finally start thinking about building truly civilised cities

When did you last go to an office? This week, as hybrid working moves towards being a legal right, Britain was revealed to be second only to Canada in the global work-from-home league. Since lockdown, its office working has fallen by more than a quarter, an average of one and a half days a week. Covid has revealed the truth, that white-collar staff are not 9-5 factory ...

What is the MoD taking in its tea? There's no way Britain will be in a three-front war by 2030 | Simon Jenkins

The outgoing defence secretary, Ben Wallace, has got the begging bowl out again. But his fearmongering about Russia and the Pacific is irresponsible

Britain’s defence secretary, Ben Wallace, resigned at the weekend. In a farewell interview he predicted, ostensibly based on intelligence, that Britain would be “at war by 2030”. Conflict would be on one of three fronts. If Vladimir Putin loses in Ukraine, says Wallace, “he’s still got an air force and a navy … [he’s] not done with us yet”.

The assump...

Sunak says he can’t afford public sector pay rises – but look at the white elephants he’s happy to fund | Simon Jenkins

Spending priorities sum up all that is rotten in government. Where is the money for education and the NHS?

Rishi Sunak has now conceded public sector workers the sum he was told to pay them by their independent review boards last year, an average rise of 6%. Had he done so then, we might have avoided six months of debilitating strikes in education, health and other public services. Last year he said he could not afford it. He still says that, demanding that the shortfall of £5bn over two years mu...