Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 40

England should take Welsh support for independence seriously before it's too late | Simon Jenkins

Nationalism is growing, and its appeal is deep – perhaps it’s time to ask why so many people in Wales want to leave

Something unexpected is emerging from Wales: support for independence is strengthening. The pro-independence campaign YesCymru had 2,000 members a year ago, now it says this has risen to more than 15,000. “That’s more members than nearly every political party in Wales,” the group’s chair, Siôn Jobbins, said. YesCymru’s latest polling with YouGov suggested 33% of Welsh people with a ...

Ten years in jail – Matt Hancock's threat is the distress call of a minister losing his grip | Simon Jenkins

This wild gesture toward would-be holidaymakers has drawn strong criticism from the right. But where is Labour?

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For the health secretary, Matt Hancock, this week to threaten returning holidaymakers with 10 years in jail was an abuse of office. He was wielding weapons of personal destruction to glamorise his role in the pandemic and to cover his political flank for past mistakes. This is not what the criminal law is for. Hancock’s self-ap...

Boris Johnson can't always rely on feuds to derail Scottish independence | Simon Jenkins

The row between Alex Salmond and Nicola Sturgeon won’t halt the nationalism that is rising across the union

Anglo-Scottish relations are heading for an almighty crash and Boris Johnson cannot look the other way. By the time he has finished in office, it is perfectly possible that Scotland will have gone the way of Ireland in 1922 and Northern Ireland will have voted itself back into the Dublin fold. The United Kingdom would be no more and it would emphatically be Johnson’s fault – because the tri...

Chris Whitty's abuse is a symptom of social media out of control | Simon Jenkins

Debate only works if it is disciplined by ethics. The failure to regulate the digital revolution is the great mistake of our age

A teenager this week harangued Britain’s chief medical officer, Chris Whitty, in the street as a liar, and then posted his attack on TikTok. It was, said Boris Johnson and Matt Hancock, “completely unacceptable”. The boy’s mother frantically apologised, explaining her 15-year-old son had “a keen interest in public affairs and politics”. His PlayStation would be confisca...

The government must pay the farmers and fishers struggling with its bad Brexit deal | Simon Jenkins

If the state can compensate businesses hurt by lockdown, it can rescue the industries struggling outside of the customs union

There is little doubt what is currently the angriest programme on air: Radio 4’s Farming Today. Every morning, enraged farmers and despairing fishers fume as their food rots in lorries and warehouses, unable to export to Europe or even Northern Ireland because of Brexit. Fishing boats lie idle. Meat cannot be moved. The talk is of animal product bans, faulty vet certifica...

‘Getting tough' on China makes headlines, but abroad nobody cares what Johnson says | Simon Jenkins

Most countries do not feel the need to pontificate about the failings of others. Change comes from within, not without

Boris Johnson was last week pressed by senior Conservatives to “take a tougher stance against China” on Uighurs, Hong Kong and human rights. What this means is obscure.

A British foreign secretary reaches his office each day amid images of imperial might. The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office is a gallery of murals of Pax Britannica, foreign victories, dazzling potentates...

Covid has made inequality even worse. The only answer: squeeze the super-rich | Simon Jenkins

It’s not right that the world’s 10 richest people have amassed £400bn since the start of the pandemic while billions struggle

Comparisons are odious, but some are sensational. According to Oxfam, the wealth of the world’s 10 richest individuals has risen by £400bn since the start of the pandemic. That sum could apparently vaccinate every adult on Earth, as well as restore the income lost in 2020 to the world’s poorest people.

These figures emerged on the opening day of the Davos World Economic Fo...

Our justice system is in crisis, so why not abolish jury trials? | Simon Jenkins

With a huge backlog of cases due to Covid, it’s a chance to reform archaic and irrelevant court rituals

A crisis can often be an opportunity. According to figures out this week, the court system in England and Wales is approaching collapse. Unlike hospitals and schools, courtrooms get no publicity.

The Covid pandemic has led to a reported buildup of 457,000 criminal cases, an increase of about 100,000 since the pandemic began. More than half of England and Wales’s 410 courthouses are reported to b...

Britain has plenty of cash to bail out big business, yet nothing for the poorest | Simon Jenkins

Boris Johnson is refusing a £20-a-week rise for those hardest hit by his pandemic policy

We can see the U-turn coming, the tyres burning, the wheels screaming. The government will surely sooner or later decide to continue the £20-a-week uplift in universal benefits until the crisis ends. So why not do it now? Boris Johnson today ordered his MPs to abstain on a Labour motion demanding the uplift stays beyond March. He derided it as coming from the same “army of Momentum trolls” who stampeded him i...

For 50 years, zero tolerance to drugs has failed – yet Britain refuses to change | Simon Jenkins

The 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act has needlessly criminalised thousands of people, and done nothing to tackle abuse

A pandemic is gripping Europe with its centre in Great Britain. More than 3 million Britons caught it in 2019-20, of whom 5,657 died – a number that has quadrupled since 2013. Scotland’s death rate has soared to three and a half times that of the whole UK, and is the worst in Europe. Multiple cures are being tested round the world, but the British government opposes every one of them.

Thi...