Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 31

Johnson’s decision is political, but it’s right to end Covid restrictions in England | Simon Jenkins

The cost of lockdown has been appalling, but the crisis is over. Now the prime minister can get back to his other demons

Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage

Boris Johnson’s use of apocalyptic demons to aid his survival in office knows no limit. Since his near-death experience of “partygate”, he has shamelessly exploited war, floods and pestilence. All have responded. Pestilence is now his greatest ally. The decision announced today to end all remaining pandemic restriction...

The evidence is all around us: life outside the single market is an utter disaster | Simon Jenkins

An island nation must trade with its nearest mainland, whatever our new Brexit opportunities minister claims

A massacre is occurring. More than 35,000 healthy British pigs have been slaughtered and buried on farms since September, with an estimated 200,000 languishing in a backlog.

The reason is that abattoirs lack the staff to process them, largely due to Britain’s exit from the pan-European labour market. In October, the environment department offered 800 six-month visas for foreign butchers. Bu...

Whisper it, but the time is right for the Queen to abdicate | Simon Jenkins

After 70 years, retiring in good health to hand over to Prince Charles would be good for the monarchy and the nation

This May, the Queen will celebrate 70 years in office, her platinum jubilee. She is already the longest-serving British ruler and, by then, will be second only to Louis XIV among European monarchs. Such longevity in office is phenomenal and will merit national congratulation and celebration.

The Queen has performed her duty of symbolising the British nation over an extraordinary era...

Wasteful, costly and cruel: it’s time to bin GCSEs for good | Simon Jenkins

The pandemic gave us the chance to rethink our education system, so why do we persist with this pointless ritual?

Two years ago, I prayed that the government might make permanent the cancelling of GCSE exams because of Covid. This wasteful, costly, cruel and pointless ritual of teenage evaluation could at last be binned; schools could revert from being testing machines to actually educating children.

No such luck. This week, thousands of young people will start their “mocks”, driving through to ex...

The Tories won’t ‘level up’ the north while they’re in thrall to London | Simon Jenkins

The capital drains the UK of its young people. Michael Gove must put re-establishing local pride at the centre of his agenda

Michael Gove should be a bishop, not a politician. He smiles. He nods. He declares “missions” and blesses all and sundry. His current diocese is Britain’s northern cities, which are suffering the worst regional disparity of any OECD country and said to be crippling the British economy. Boris Johnson has acknowledged this in his “levelling up” agenda. But to govern is to gov...

Lying didn’t work for Boris Johnson, so now he’s turned to bribery | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister’s response to ‘partygate’ is a wild orgy of populist policies to keep up the pretence he’s still in charge

For the past fortnight Sue Gray’s report on “partygate” has been hovering over Downing Street like a huge vulture, seeking only somewhere to land. A redacted version is expected imminently. In the meantime, Boris Johnson is panicking. For partygate he has substituted policygate, a wild orgy of populist pronouncements designed to show he is still in charge. If Johnson canno...

Even Johnson's own fraud minister couldn't bear the stink of this government | Simon Jenkins

With £5bn lost to fraudulent Covid loan claims, Lord Agnew did a rare thing for a minister in 2022: he told the truth and quit

Theodore Agnew was the model of a modern Tory oligarch. A successful businessman, he made enough to dabble in the new politics. He did all the right things. He backed a chain of academy schools and joined a Conservative thinktank, Policy Exchange. He donated a dutiful £134,000 to the Tory party between 2007 and 2009. Part-owner of an AI consultancy called Faculty, Agnew s...

A measure of autonomy in eastern Ukraine is the only way out of this crisis | Simon Jenkins

Nato’s treatment of Russia almost guaranteed a chauvinistic reflex. The way forward is to implement the Minsk settlement

The movement of troops round the Ukrainian border now clearly heralds a crisis. Russia’s level of provocation is grotesque, but nothing on the ground poses any strategic threat to Britain or any other western government, or even to Europe’s security as a whole.

Ukraine’s relations with Russia have been fraught since the toppling of the pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych in ...

Britain should stay well out of Russia’s border dispute with Ukraine | Simon Jenkins

Johnson won’t save his skin by threats of war with another ailing populist, and Putin will not be stopped by the west

Nothing in politics is as dangerous as a populist in trouble – unless it is two populists in trouble. Today we have Britain’s Boris Johnson and Russia’s Vladimir Putin, both with plunging popularity ratings and both desperately in need of a distraction. There is no distraction as enticing as war.

War across Ukraine’s conflict-ridden Donbas region is now said by western strategists ...

After the Prince Andrew scandal, it's time to slim down the monarchy | Simon Jenkins

Royal offspring are accidents waiting to happen. Far better to cut down the throne to an heir and a spare

The royal family is engaged in frantic damage limitation ahead of the Queen’s platinum jubilee this summer. The Duke of York’s court case, which could turn out to be a high-octane festival of royal humiliation, risks contaminating the celebrations. This should have nothing to do with Britain’s monarchy, except that it has everything to do with it. The essence of monarchy is its image; right n...