Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 21

Whatever the merits of the Hancock leaks, this much is clear: Britain needs to speed up its Covid inquiry | Simon Jenkins

Did decisions made by the former health secretary lead to more care home deaths? The point is, we should already know

The delay to the inquiry into Britain’s handling of Covid merits an inquiry of its own. The allegations in the Daily Telegraph about the then health secretary, Matt Hancock – including that he dismissed expert advice to test anyone entering a care home for coronavirus at the start of the pandemic – may not be sensational. (Hancock has strongly rejected the claim.) Hindsight is a ...

Sunak should remove the whip from Johnson – it's the only language he understands | Simon Jenkins

His opposition to the revised Northern Ireland protocol should be treated with the same contempt with which he ran the party

Rishi Sunak has no alternative. The United Kingdom which Northern Ireland is part of is a democracy ruled by the Westminster parliament. In the matter of the Northern Ireland protocol, the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) is claiming the right of veto over a classic function of any union – foreign trade. The party is supported by the Tories’ recent leader and prime minister,...

Rishi Sunak can’t compromise his protocol deal. He must face down the DUP | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister has to stand firm against Northern Ireland’s backwoodsmen and their cheerleaders in his own party

Rishi Sunak knows what he must do in Northern Ireland. He cannot cringe any longer before that region’s backwoodsmen and their cheerleaders in his own party. Unlike his predecessors, he has nothing to lose, with probably just two years in office. He clearly has a deal on a revised Irish trade protocol with the EU on the table, and he has the parliamentary votes to push it through. ...

There is a path to Scottish independence. Sturgeon was brilliant, but she just couldn’t see it | Simon Jenkins

So-called devo max, offering much more autonomy, had real possibilities. It’s probably the SNP’s best option even now

An independent Scotland has not been hindered by Nicola Sturgeon’s departure; it could well be advanced by it. Her eight years as first minister have been remarkable, but failed to bring statehood closer to reality. The question is whether her intransigence postponed it.

Sturgeon made a strategic error after her predecessor Alex Salmond lost the 2014 independence referendum. She as...

Sacking Richard Sharp would be a great loss to the BBC: after all, he has friends in high places | Simon Jenkins

Given his predicament, Sharp has much to gain from defending the corporation – and the connections to do it effectively

The affair of Sam Blyth helping to secure a loan of up to £800,000 for Boris Johnson has left Richard Sharp, the BBC chair, badly wounded. Assuming he survives, his reputation will depend on his defending the corporation to the death against its enemies – particularly those on the right. He was a friend of Johnson, was Rishi Sunak’s boss at Goldman Sachs, and has given generous...

Russia-Ukraine war: UK will not send fighter jets to Ukraine ‘if there is a risk to British safety’ – as it happened

This live blog has now closed, you can read more on the situation in Ukraine here

A leading military aviation analyst, Justin Bronk at the Rusi thinktank, says the UK could probably spare only a handful of its oldest, Tranche 1, Typhoons amounting to around 20 to 25. Ukraine has said it needs around 200 western fighters to create a war winning air force.

The fighters were, he tweeted, “not optimised for low altitude” – flying of the type needed to evade Russian air defences, and were not well desi...

Zelenskiy wants jets. The west should think very carefully before giving them to him | Simon Jenkins

To grant Ukraine’s request carries a huge risk – better to help it gain battlefield advantage as a basis for peace talks

Heroic rhetoric has its moment in every conflict. “We have freedom, give us wings to protect it,” cried Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in pleading support from the nations of Europe in Westminster Hall on Wednesday. He faces a renewed battle to drive Russian tanks off his land – all his land – in the spring. His cause is just and it is desperate. He now wants jets.

At...

Britain is desperate for workers – but Sunak won’t admit immigration is the answer | Simon Jenkins

Post-Brexit, health and care employers, farmers and builders struggle to fill vacancies while ministers demonise those who could help

A sure sign of a happy country is the eagerness of foreigners to come to live there. One such state is Great Britain. Newcomers are a net benefit to a modern economy and should be welcomed accordingly. Thus, their compliment is returned.

Last year Britain’s ageing population was supplemented by a record net immigration of half a million people. After two years of pa...

Royal commissions transformed Britain in the 1960s – we desperately need them now | Simon Jenkins

These independent inquiries would rise above the party-political deadlock over reform for the NHS and housing

Britain’s once-famed welfare state seems unable to deliver. Public services are riven with conflict and starved of funds. Nothing works. Yet there the argument ends. The government defends the status quo, the opposition claims it is all about money. The Treasury rules. Reform ossifies. Progress is zero.

Scratch the surface of this week’s strikes and it is clear that each of the services ha...

Sunak’s job was to unclog Westminster’s fatberg of sleaze. His handling of Zahawi was entirely right | Simon Jenkins

There is not a democracy in the world where Zahawi’s failings and Sunak’s response would have merited such a ballyhoo

Prime ministers do not need ethics advisers. They need theatre producers. The outgoing Conservative party chair, Nadhim Zahawi, was an able, popular politician and briefly successful minister. He did not break any law, filch PPE cash from the state, appoint a friend to public office, hug an aide or attend an illegal gathering. Like thousands of taxpayers he admits to making a “car...