Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 37

Ministers had a chance to improve young people’s lives – and flunked it yet again | Simon Jenkins

The decision to water down the schools catch-up programme shows the obscene priorities of a cabinet of reckless spenders

It was a savage put-down. When Sir Kevan Collins, England’s schools recovery chief, left Boris Johnson’s office last week, his bid for a £15bn three-year education “catch-up” programme had been reduced to £1.4bn. The government’s watered-down package amounts to about £50 a year per pupil, against the US’s £1,600 and the Netherlands’ £2,500. Meanwhile, Johnson is spending billio...

Will ‘freedom day’ go ahead? The only thing we know is we don’t know | Simon Jenkins

As Covid data emerges, decisions over England’s easing on 21 June will go down to the wire. We must hope No 10 gets it right

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England faces the tensest two weeks of its entire lockdown. On 14 June, the government must decide if the long-promised “freedom day” of 21 June can proceed as promised. That promise has now been plunged into doubt. A three-day surge in “cases” of the variant of Covid first detected in India may, or may not, mark t...

Sanctions are imposed by the sanctimonious, and achieve nothing | Simon Jenkins

The west can disapprove all it likes of leaders like Belarus’s Lukashenko, but only engagement will change anything

What should we do about Belarus? It is becoming the North Korea of Europe, its opposition leader in exile, Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya, told the European parliament this week. But it must be the wrong question. The question is not what should we do, but what can we do?

European and American politicians reach for economic sanctions as they used to reach for gunboats or bombers. But gunbo...

For all its faults, the BBC’s capacity for critical journalism should be celebrated | Simon Jenkins

Ministers hate the BBC for understandable reasons, but Britain is all the better for it

Good news. The system is working. Britain’s largest media organisation by far, the BBC, has ministers howling for its blood. The ancient beast is wandering through the bush, wounded by the Martin Bashir affair and trumpeting its regrets. Tory ministers are taking potshots at it with headlines, eager for preferment in Boris Johnson’s next reshuffle.

We know what happens next. The BBC sings another verse of “less...

There’s nothing ‘great’ about this new British Railways revamp | Simon Jenkins

Ministers will not get the rail system back on track until they allow individual train companies to manage their assets

No enemy of Tory policy is as savage as a Johnson Tory. Enter Grant Shapps, transport secretary. His proposed reincarnation of British Railways (ridiculously with “Great” attached) ends one of the major failures of modern British government. He accuses the botched Conservative privatisation of British Rail in 1993 of leading to “fragmentation, confusion and overcomplication”. In...

Johnson’s voter ID checks are not about electoral fraud, they’re about power | Simon Jenkins

Britain’s elections have a clean bill of health, and yet the government is wilfully hindering people’s right to vote

The government’s voter identity scheme should be abandoned. It is unnecessary, inconvenient and a disincentive to vote. More serious, voter cards for those without a current form of photo ID would be another step, however modest, towards the regulation and surveillance of daily life, an obsession of governments worldwide since the digital revolution.

A classic test of state liberali...

London’s pain could become the north’s gain, but Johnson isn’t up to the job | Simon Jenkins

Stemming the ‘brain drain’ to London is a vast undertaking that will take a lot more than political gimmicks

Modern British government is a lurch from catchphrase to cliche. Policy is rarely in sight. Following the Tories’ remarkable success in the local elections, Boris Johnson will today announce a new campaign to “stop the brain drain” from northern cities. Bitten by Covid’s big spending bug, he will tip cash into infrastructure to get people to “live local and prosper”.

Two consequences follow...

Away from TV’s Line of Duty the police have a long, tawdry history of corruption | Simon Jenkins

Without transparent and independent oversight, every organisation ultimately proves vulnerable to the lure of money

As a young journalist, I remember looking across the news desk one night at a row of brown envelopes awaiting a messenger. Each was addressed to a central London police station. It was, apparently, for the “police benevolent fund” and was for “tip-offs”. But tip-offs of what? I was shocked.

Related: Undercover officer ‘rose to top of campaign group he infiltrated’

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Plaid Cymru has a mountain to climb, but Welsh independence is no pipe dream | Simon Jenkins

Wales has gone from ‘indy curious’ to ‘indy plausible’, and nationalists should look to Ireland for inspiration

Next year is the centenary of the founding of the Irish Free State and the path to full independence. It is just conceivable that Scotland could celebrate by striking out alone too. But Wales? Surely not.

The Welsh Senedd elections on 6 May seem likely to confirm Labour’s Mark Drakeford in office in Cardiff. But he may have to rely on Welsh nationalist backing from Plaid Cymru. That part...

Johnson’s renovations are immaterial – unlike the other sleaze allegations | Simon Jenkins

The government may ride out all the embarrassing inquiries, but at what cost?

Vain, mendacious, inattentive, conflicts of interest, unfaithful with wives and incapable of keeping his staff. And that is just the last US president. When Boris Johnson should be attending to the nation’s affairs, he mimics Donald Trump as a daily fount of salaciousness and scandal. Most of it is his fault, if not all.

Related: Tories are wrong to think that they will never face a day of reckoning for sleaze | Andrew ...