Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 2

He may talk rubbish but Trump has an eye for beauty, and that is a breath of fresh air | Simon Jenkins

The US president promotes classical architecture and loathes ‘ugly’ wind turbines. Keir Starmer would dismiss him as a nimby, but on this Trump has a point

Trigger warning. Some readers may find this disturbing. Not everything Donald Trump says is mad and a lie. Not all of it is about money. Some of it is even worth saying. When he came to office, one of Trump’s first actions was extraordinary. He directed his fire at what he saw as the ugliness of American architecture. He demanded that at least...

Another way we are failing an entire generation: we must teach young people to speak | Simon Jenkins

The PM promised to prioritise oracy, but has failed to do so. Set against tests and exams, it is seen as a luxury: in fact it is essential

The greatest failing of Britain’s schools is to teach children to read, write and count, but not to speak. They teach what technology can increasingly do for them, but not what it cannot. A regular complaint of today’s employers is that applicants for jobs lack social skills or work ethic.

Pupils are rarely taught how to present themselves, handle arguments or...

This fiasco didn’t start when Britain leaked Afghans’ names, but when we invaded their country | Simon Jenkins

Even after Tony Blair’s bungled war, UK leaders still yearned to dominate the world stage. With the lifting of the superinjunction, we can all see where that has led

What odds on a public inquiry into the Afghan superinjunction? Gold-plated, judge-led, three years of fun and games, that is how British politics normally kicks an embarrassment into the long grass. And what odds on who will get off scot free – Tony Blair?

The more we pick away at the stages of this fiasco, the more from the start one...

Ed Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost? | Simon Jenkins

Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something

Nowhere does landscape marry passion quite so much as in Yorkshire’s Wuthering Heights. The tempestuous Pennine contours and tumbling streams perfectly frame Emily Brontë’s turbulent romance. Wild storms and dark gullies echo the cries of Heathcliff, Cathy and sexual jealousy. From moorland peaks to the historic Brontë village of Haworth below, the scene is unspoilt.

I cannot think of...

This was Les Mis in the Commons – and Kemi Badenoch couldn’t resist hamming it up | Simon Jenkins

The Tory leader should have supported Labour’s welfare bill – but such responsible behaviour would have defied the norms of British politics

They roared, they wept, they cheered. The audience gasped and the markets plunged. The critics loved it. Foreigners are famously envious of British politics played as fun.

I always thought it cruel to attack a person in tears. Tell that to the Tory leader, Kemi Badenoch. Her savaging of the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, at prime minister’s questions (PMQs) on We...

Note to Starmer and the other sabre-rattlers. Why spend billions on weapons – soft power would keep us safe | Simon Jenkins

With hawks on one side and doves on the other, we ignore the obvious fact that engagement is the best defence against conflict

‘Toadying”, “slavish”, “cringe-worthy” were the words hurled at Nato’s Mark Rutte for the praise he heaped on Donald Trump. But words cost nothing. Keir Starmer went further. He dug into his pocket and $1.3bn for just 12 aeroplanes. He promised never to use them, or put any bombs in them, without orders from Washington. He might as well have enrolled in the Uni...

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...