Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 32

No wonder deceit is dragging Boris Johnson under – he’s not even a good liar | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister is belatedly learning that a few jokes cannot distract from a catalogue of ego-driven mendacity

He lied. He clearly lied. But so what? As Boris Johnson hangs on by his fingertips, we wait to see who will stamp on them. The answer is presumably Sue Gray, to whose final mercies he has desperately handed his fate. Surely nothing she says can rescue him. At question is not his guilt, only his punishment.

Johnson can plead that he was “advised” that office parties were within the rul...

Novak Djokovic's case is about Australia's flawed border practices, not vaccines | Simon Jenkins

The tennis player may be unjabbed, but he did what was asked of him to access the country

There is so far only one lesson in the “acquittal” of the tennis player Novak Djokovic on a charge of seeking to enter Australia unvaccinated. It is that something is badly wrong with that country’s border controls.

The judge found that the tennis star had met all reasonable requirements for admission, as was conceded by the Canberra government. He had two separate permits for exemption from vaccination, one ...

'Sir Tony Blair'? How cheaply knighthoods come in our broken honours system | Simon Jenkins

Bestowing an award on the former prime minister simply because he once did a job shows how urgently we need reform

So, Anthony Charles Lynton “call me Tony” Blair must now be called Sir Tony. In addition to being “Right Honourable” he is to be the Queen’s Companion, chivalrous and knightly. He is to wear a royal garter, the highest honour the monarch can bestow, and it is her personal decision. Gasps all round. A petition of protest has received almost 700,000 signatures already.

On paper the reas...

Here’s what a Tory donor and a lavish Liz Truss lunch in Mayfair tells us about British politics | Simon Jenkins

The latest revelations highlight the casual way powerful relationships and public funds intertwine

A woman must lunch somewhere. When the prime minister told Liz Truss to examine every road post Brexit, her thoughts naturally turned to Mayfair and Hertford Street. Perhaps that nice caff at No 5. We are after all lunching with that nice American trade envoy, Katherine Tai. Perhaps two measures of dry gin; two bottles of Pazo Barrantes Albariño, a Spanish white wine, costing a total of £153; and t...

Churches could double as banks, or even serve beer. We can’t leave them empty | Simon Jenkins

These mainly listed buildings sit at the heart of almost every community – we are squandering a precious legacy

For the first time, possibly in a millennium, fewer than half of all Britons call themselves Christian. This month’s updating of the 2011 census suggests the latest figure is down from 60% to 51%, with predictions that next year it will be in the 40s. No one yet knows what the pandemic has done to religious faith, but the trend across the western world is the same. At least in wealthier...

Pity a public that has so many questions about Covid. Who should be believed? | Simon Jenkins

People need evidence if they are to accept more curbs on their liberties, but all we get are bland, unqualified statistics

British politics this week faces an intellectual crisis. It is one of whom to believe. With yet another wave of Covid at full throttle, the cabinet is reportedly split on whether to rely on its one “winner” from the pandemic, vaccination, or whether to return to mass lockdown. There is no disputing that the Omicron variant is highly infectious. There is bitter argument about ...

Weak, crumbling and falling apart – parliament is a lot like Boris Johnson | Simon Jenkins

This endless aggression is a tired way of conducting democracy. As we rebuild the House of Commons, let’s remake politics too

Can there be a silver lining to the disaster that is Covid? It happens in wars when societies shift focus and priority. It should happen in pandemics, too.

Boris Johnson has adopted a presidential style of government. He rules, as we saw on Sunday, by television performance and press conferences during which he is in control. Apart from his weekly fisticuffs with Keir Starm...

If no one listens to Johnson over Omicron, that’s his fault. But listen to him we must | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister is unable to invest his office with any dignity, but this is an emergency and he should have the benefit of the doubt

Just now, Boris Johnson matters. He matters because he is Britain’s prime minister at a critical moment in the pandemic. The authority of his office should be directed at achieving the one reasonably sure defence against it: mass vaccination. Sunday night’s announcement that the vaccination programme is being stepped up to get third doses to all adults by the en...

Britain’s record on drugs is stuck on a loop. ‘Crackdowns’ simply don’t work | Simon Jenkins

After 50 years of costly failure it’s clear that punishment is no deterrent, yet Boris Johnson is not to be dissuaded

The Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 must be the worst law ever passed by a modern parliament. Its purpose was “to prevent the misuse of controlled drugs” by means of “a complete ban on their possession, supply, manufacture, import and export”. It has plainly failed.

Fifty years on, the act is variously credited with a soaring prison population, the devastation of working-class communities...

Johnson’s imperial bombast could suck Britain into more deadly interventions | Simon Jenkins

As tensions with Russia and China increase, the prime minister meddles in foreign policy to distract from domestic woes

Relations between the world’s great powers are tenser than ever since the cold war. Troops are massing along Russia’s border with Ukraine. Chinese ships and planes are openly threatening Taiwan. Japan is rearming in response. Turkey is renewing its belligerence towards its neighbours. Russia is backing east-west fragmentation in Bosnia.

Where Britain stands in all this is danger...