Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 24

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...

Electing a new leader would be risky – but these are desperate times for the Tories | Simon Jenkins

Getting rid of Truss would lead to a nasty few months. But it may be the only way for Conservative MPs to save their skins

Is it enough to save her? Jeremy Hunt’s rescue package for Britain’s battered economy was announced today, but its subplot is a rescue package for a battered prime minister. The fate of the economy hangs on the markets and may take weeks to resolve. The fate of the prime minister, her economic policy devastated to the point of ridicule by Hunt, could be a matter of days. Rare...

Only proper online regulation can stop poisonous conspiracists like Alex Jones | Simon Jenkins

A US court has imposed a huge fine for lies he spread about a school shooting. But he and others like him will continue to sow mayhem

I assume every reader of the Guardian will cheer the news of a $965m (£860m) fine imposed on Alex Jones, the rightwing American conspiracist. A Connecticut court fined him for disseminating the cruel lie that the 2012 Sandy Hook elementary school shooting was staged with actors by the anti-gun lobby. Justice is now done. Up to a point.

One of the most unfortunate pi...

Liz Truss says she ‘gets it’ – but how many more U-turns can she stomach? | Simon Jenkins

A disastrous conference may force the prime minister into a humiliating return to the moderate Toryism she rejected

There are two phases to any project, launch and relaunch. After the wreckage of her party conference last week, few relaunches are more urgent than that signalled by Liz Truss’s cry that she “gets it”. Forget any charm offensive. She must dismantle – call it redefine – her rejection of Boris Johnson’s moderate Toryism, approved by the electorate in 2019, and must do it fast.

Truss ha...

The best course left to the Tories is to oust Liz Truss – and install a caretaker leader | Simon Jenkins

It may be too late to save the next election. But a unifier like Michael Gove could prepare the party for effective opposition

Never underestimate the Tory party. It has confined Labour to just 13 of the past 43 years in office. It never gives in without a fight and is unafraid of ruthlessly toppling leaders. The latest, Liz Truss, has shown herself in just four weeks to have been a major mistake. The party has two years to correct that mistake before facing the electorate.

The Tories have been he...

Truss U-turned on tax cuts for the super-rich – now she can axe the rest of her disastrous budget | Simon Jenkins

The PM and Kwasi Kwarteng have been forced into a humiliating reverse. If they want to stem public fury, they must go further

Good news. The lady is for turning. Liz Truss has had a nightmare week. She galvanised her chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, to produce a crazily ideological budget shorn of the normal checks and balances. The head of the Treasury was sacked, the Bank of England ignored, Whitehall’s official factcheckers stifled and the cabinet left in the dark. It was 2012’s “omnishambles” budg...