Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 23

Dear PM, if Scots want closer links with Europe, why not? Let’s have a Scottish protocol | Simon Jenkins

Rishi Sunak has gloated at the supreme court’s rebuff to Nicola Sturgeon. He’d be better off fashioning a proper devolution deal

England never gets Scotland right. Last week the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, repeated Downing Street’s familiar gloat over another reverse for Scottish home rule. London’s supreme court dismissed the Scottish National party’s bid for an “advisory” plebiscite on whether to hold another independence referendum. Just go home, said Sunak, and run Scotland better. He seemed...

Professions, heal yourselves – only you can make the public sector better value for money | Simon Jenkins

Rishi Sunak should complete Thatcher’s challenge and ask doctors, barristers, teachers and academics to embrace change

Jeremy Hunt’s budget statement last week might calm markets. It is unlikely to calm its chief clients: the public services. Here, the best Hunt could claim is that they were warned. After 10 years of austerity and two of pandemic chaos, all sectors other than health now face real terms cuts. Hunt is not going to help them any more. They must help themselves.

The oddest contributi...

We may not be heading for a Swiss-style Brexit deal, but Sunak must face reality | Simon Jenkins

Most of Britain’s trade is with Europe, and Brexit has crippled it. There is a long way to go to resolve this fallout

As long as Brexit lasts it will remain on the political stage. For six years since the 2016 referendum, Britain’s relations with the EU have been soured. The reason is simple, you cannot erect a barrier against the 40% of trade that is with your closest neighbour without pain.

The Office for Budget Responsibility has said that Brexit’s impact on the economy is now “adverse” over th...

The real ‘black hole’ in the UK’s finances is HS2 – let’s kill off this monstrosity for good | Simon Jenkins

Successive prime ministers have lacked the courage to end this vanity project. Is Rishi Sunak any different?

In April 2020, the then chancellor Rishi Sunak gave his approval to a new railway to Birmingham, expected to cost £44bn. Contracts were promptly signed. The overall HS2 project is estimated at £100bn. An infuriated Whitehall official told me at the time: “Never let that man say he cannot afford any item of public expenditure.”

The ambition was soon trimmed. HS2 will no longer go to Yorkshir...

Beware The Crown’s blurring of fact and fiction in this age of dangerous untruths | Simon Jenkins

It might be ‘only’ a TV show, but the boundaries between history and make-believe need to be clear

Thirty years ago, the present king tried to usurp his mother, the Queen. He sought to conspire with the then prime minister, John Major, after an opinion poll hostile to the monarch appeared in the Sunday Times. Like all the scenes in Netflix’s The Crown, this is claimed to have been “inspired by real events”.

In truth there was no such plot, no conspiracy and no poll hostile to the monarchy. A ficti...

Rishi Sunak has surrounded himself with yes-men. What he really needs is a Willie | Simon Jenkins

As Margaret Thatcher knew, a PM’s success depends on wise advice – and Sunak should look to his backbenches to find it

Rishi Sunak needs help. Most prime ministerial decisions are no-brainers, as in reversing a mini-budget or sacking a Jacob Rees-Mogg. Others are strictly personal. These have recently included whether to return Suella Braverman to the Home Office, allow Gavin Williamson into the cabinet, or not to go to Cop27. They have damaged Sunak’s claim to “integrity and accountability” and...

Here’s the best way for Britain to solve the migrant crisis: give them work visas | Simon Jenkins

Our plight is rich in absurdity. The UK needs new workers and people want to come here. The real problem is populist politics

There is an unmarked warehouse outside Hull station that should be a museum. It is where hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of Jews fleeing eastern Europe’s pogroms at the end of the 19th century were isolated before crossing to Liverpool for ships to America. There is nothing new in the squalor of migration. It is about desperate people, and increasingly desperate...

M&S is a shining example of how not to treat the high street – or the planet | Simon Jenkins

The retailer wants to knock down and rebuild its flagship store, or leave. It should do the latter, and let small shops thrive

An inquiry opened this week in Westminster that should be revolutionary. It is to decide, in a nutshell, whether the 50% of global carbon emissions embodied in the world’s built environment should be a factor in fighting the climate crisis. If we are all to account for the impact on global temperature rises of our eating, heating and travelling, why not our building?

The i...

Rishi Sunak has won. Now the Tories can restore stability and leave Johnson behind | Simon Jenkins

The parliamentary party must unite around the new prime minister to end the fiasco of the past six years

The comedy is over. The clowns have backed off. Boris Johnson raced from his Caribbean beach to revive his political potency, but for once it failed him. Those who knew him best recoiled in horror. He decided in his arrogance that this was “not the right time”. The money markets shuddered and this morning recovered. Britain is a parliamentary democracy, not a mobocracy. The grownups are taking...

After Truss, it’s the club v the mob – the Tories’ last chance before Britain demands an election | Simon Jenkins

The Conservatives know the people’s verdict would be devastating. But they can’t be allowed to carry on in a state of perpetual chaos

Summer 2022 must mark a low moment in the history of British politics.

Whatever emerges in the next week, the mother of parliaments has been reduced to a bad joke, its constitution a laughing stock. Four prime ministers have been ejected from office in six years, none by the vote of a democratic electorate. A fifth is about to be chosen, again without an election.

S...