Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 2

How bad is the HS2 fiasco now? So bad it's time to listen to Nigel Farage | Simon Jenkins

Labour now says the botched high-speed rail project will be further delayed. Why not just scrap it, as the Reform leader suggests?

Stop it now. Stop spending sums that you admit are out of control. Show common sense and send everyone home. HS2 is a bad joke, a fiasco.

Labour’s second transport secretary in a year, Heidi Alexander, claimed on Wednesday to be shocked by HS2. She was clearly new to the subject. After being briefed on the latest delays and cost overruns by the latest CEO, Mark Wild, s...

Labour had the chance to finally kill off HS2. Instead, it’s throwing more money into the pit | Simon Jenkins

Rachel Reeves didn’t utter a word about this disaster in her spending review. Yet there’s a colossal £25bn more earmarked for it

Where was the elephant in the room? It received not a mention in the spending review. In among the hospitals and schools, the highways and the prisons, the great beast wandered, a ghostly presence cursing all from whom it stole.

I found it in a Whitehall handout, sandwiched somewhere between Leeds station and a Welsh level crossing. The transport department did not even...

Sadiq Khan is right: Britain must decriminalise cannabis – or remain in the dark ages | Simon Jenkins

Criminalising drugs ruins lives and wastes police resources. Other countries realise this – when will UK politicians wake up?

Yet another attempt to inject sanity into Britain’s archaic drug laws has failed. The mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, last month accepted Lord Falconer’s modest proposal to decriminalise the possession of small amounts of cannabis. He was stamped on yet again by that citadel of reaction, the Home Office, and its boss, Yvette Cooper. Falconer’s distinguished group of lawyers, ...

From the day Britain left the EU, this reset was inevitable. What a pointless waste of time, money and effort | Simon Jenkins

Keir Starmer is not blameless when it comes to Brexit, but he is moving in the right direction. Even the Tories attacking him know that

For the Tories to attack Keir Starmer’s first step towards a Brexit reset is monumental hypocrisy. Their Brexit led to £4.7bn being spent on implementing post-EU border arrangements, according to the National Audit Office, including a vastly expensive “take back control” border post at Sevington in Kent. No other country in the world can have erected such ludicro...

Move civil servants out of London: fine. But that won’t curb Whitehall’s grip on Britain | Simon Jenkins

It matters less where civil servants work than who they work for – and that is one of the most centralised governments of any western democracy

The government has announced an army of civil servants, thousands strong, is to head into the darkest provinces. White papers in future will have the tang of JB Priestley and farm subsidies the fizz of Jilly Cooper. Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby will be a Master of Foxhounds. Like all Sir Keir Starmer’s actions just now, it should be worth a few vot...

Will Nigel Farage and Reform UK kill off the Tories? Don’t be so ridiculous | Simon Jenkins

History proves byelections to be futile polls on leaders. If I were Farage, I would apply for the Tory whip and capture the party from within

The Runcorn and Helsby byelection belongs in the rubbish bin of politics. British byelections are charades, mock polls, playtime for pundits. They reduce normally sensible analysts to hysterics. That most pragmatic of prime ministers, Harold Wilson, refused point blank to comment on them.

Yes, Reform’s Nigel Farage had a field day. He is the latest jester to...

Here’s a radical way to save England’s collapsing justice system: get rid of juries | Simon Jenkins

We’re saddled with an archaic system. As record numbers of trials stall and costs soar, it’s time for us to ditch this relic

Are the middle ages about to end? We all know Magna Cartaset the principle that justice delayed is justice denied. These days, outmoded British judicial systems amount to precisely such a denial of justice, playthings of a legal profession supremely confident of its perfection. No aspect of these systems is more superfluous than juries. There is no conclusive evidence they ...

Youth centres may seem tame fare for politicians. But I've seen firsthand how they cut crime | Simon Jenkins

By steering Britain’s young people down a positive path, these centres answer a chronic need. Why doesn’t the government protect them?

At next week’s local elections, few will be voting on how their council is run. They will be passing judgment on Keir Starmer, Kemi Badenoch and other national figures. Local democracy no longer thrives in Britain. An opinion poll would be cheaper.

Cut to the humble youth club. I supported a private charity in my old borough of Camden, north London, that was strugg...

UK politics: Badenoch calls for broader review of equality and gender recognition laws – as it happened

‘These laws were written 20 years ago plus when the world was different,’ Tory leader says

The chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has suggested that there may be legal challenges around the efficacy of gender recognition certificates (GRC) ahead.

Asked on the BBC Radio 4 Today programme if yesterday’s supreme court ruling had rendered the legal document worthless, Kishwer Falkner said:

I think the next stage of litigation may well be tests as to the efficacy of the GRC, and or...

Votes for 16-year-olds? Sorry, but I’m not convinced | Simon Jenkins

If Starmer is serious about bringing young people into his ‘social contract’, then protecting them from the tech giants must be his priority

I remember being 16 in the 1960s. The prime minister seemed geriatric and I was sure he should be in care, while a group of us went to meet our young MP, a certain Margaret Thatcher. She was young, but she didn’t seem as if she was with the times. We could not dream of voting for someone like her. Matter closed.

Sixteen-year-olds are great fun but they are no...