Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 42

Boris Johnson has to stop playing games and agree a deal with Europe | Simon Jenkins

Britain must accept whatever it is offered, it can’t afford not to. The EU is stronger, it has Biden on its side – and it’s right

This week it’s for real, at last. The EU’s chief negotiator, Michel Barnier, is in London for the last time in earnest – a deal must be struck this week before UK and EU parliaments can start to ratify a trade and security deal. If Boris Johnson’s apparently helpless negotiator David Frost cannot shake on a deal, preparations for a hard border round Britain’s coast mus...

Britain's government is exploiting fear to suit its actions, whether on Covid or terrorism | Simon Jenkins

The last refuge of the populist – the politics of fear – is being shamelessly deployed by both Priti Patel and Boris Johnson

The home secretary told me this week that I faced a terrorist threat that was “severe” and an incident that was “highly likely”. I should be “alert”, she said.

What is the difference between likely and highly likely? Should I fear to leave home? Should I run for my life if I see a man with a backpack? Priti Patel also tells me to be “not alarmed”. So why does she try to sca...

A new website for independent bookshops is just what the industry needs | Simon Jenkins

The high street is clearly facing disaster, but in order to survive it must make peace with the online world

Good news from the high street. We don’t often read those words, least of all courtesy of the internet. The UK opening on Monday of the Bookshop website is a blood transfusion for independent bookshops and one from which all retailers can learn. The website is a mail-order circumvention of Amazon, selling books under the flags of more than 130 independent booksellers. Buyers order their bo...

The world is rocked by protest – but does taking to the streets ever work? | Simon Jenkins

From Minsk to São Paulo, protesters think they are making a difference. But political reform must come from within

If all else fails, democracy takes to the street. The street is its last resort. At present, each weekend we see the people of Belarus marching to demand the resignation of their president, Alexander Lukashenko. We see protesters in Thailand are jamming Bangkok to reform their monarchy. Nigerians are rioting in Lagos, Brazilians in São Paulo.

Related: Biden vows to back Belarus oppos...

Johnson and Patel are baiting lawyers to distract from the real threat to our freedoms | Simon Jenkins

Lawyers should ignore No 10’s taunts and instead gird their loins to campaign in favour of judicial review

Eight hundred legal eagles are up in arms. They are furious with Boris Johnson and Priti Patel, accusing them of being “lefty lawyers” and “do-gooders”, seeking to leave the “whole” criminal justice system “hamstrung”. At this month’s Tory party conference, the two politicians accused them in one voice of indefensibly exploiting a “broken” immigration appeal system in the interest of their c...

London is the wild west of the global property market – and it needs a sheriff | Simon Jenkins

We must legislate to curb the overseas tycoons buying up apartments and leaving them empty

One of the biggest property tycoons in London is the president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan. The Guardian revealed last week that he owned around £5.5bn of real estate in the city. This covers streets and buildings in Mayfair, Knightsbridge and Kensington, and may be more valuable even than the London holdings of the Grosvenor Estate, surpassed only by the Crown.

For a fore...

Judges are fighting back against Boris Johnson - and they're right | Simon Jenkins

Supreme court justice Lord Kerr has condemned the government’s ‘unbridled power’. Who can disagree with him?

Boris Johnson is said to be bad at making friends, but he is good at making enemies. This week he has added judges and bishops to his lengthening list. The departing and longest-serving supreme court justice, Lord Kerr, has condemned the prime minister’s persistent abuse of the judiciary as “unbridled power” and a “slippery slope to dictatorship”. This comes on top of a statement from the ...

This pandemic has been the making of England's elected mayors | Simon Jenkins

Despite the government doing its best to ignore local expertise on Covid, mayors are showing how democracy should work

Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverage

Suddenly mayors matter. The 20 years since elected mayors were introduced half-heartedly by Tony Blair in 2000 had been years of obscurity. Now coronavirus has thrust them into the spotlight. We hear daily from Andy Burnham, “leader of the north”, from Liverpool’s Steve Rotheram, Birmingham’s Andy Street, Sheffield’s Dan...

When handouts go straight to ministers' constituencies, it's time for local control | Simon Jenkins

Councils are forced to come cap in hand for funds, while the favouritism of MPs such as Robert Jenrick is given free rein

Before last year’s election, Boris Johnson’s local government minister, Robert Jenrick, announced a massive £3.6bn of handouts to 101 “left-behind” towns across England. Forty of these were defined by Whitehall as most in need. The remainder were allegedly chosen by two ministers, Jenrick and his number two, Jake Berry. Most were marginal seats, all but one of which voted Tory...

Johnson and Sturgeon will need a better philosophy than precaution to rid us of Covid | Simon Jenkins

When they’re dicing with our lives, politicians must fully explain the reasoning for their decisions

‘You cannot put people out of a job on a hunch,” a Glasgow restaurant owner said of Nicola Sturgeon’s new drinking restrictions in Scotland, which have forbidden the sale of alcohol in licensed premises and closed pubs and restaurants across the country’s central belt for 16 days. “I genuinely do not understand it – and we’re not being told why.”

Related: Pubs and restaurants: do scientists think ...