Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 52

This isn’t a Conservative manifesto. It’s a Boris Johnson manifesto | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister has jettisoned traditional Tory values in a bid for voters of all persuasions

There is no Conservative manifesto. There is just a Boris Johnson manifesto. As he rollicked round the stage in Telford on Sunday, the prime minister had only one message to the electorate: whatever your supposed party loyalty, forget it. Vote me. I will promise you anything. We both know I don’t mean it, but you will still love me for it.

The past week’s manifestos mark the effective end of...

Johnson’s Brexit would devastate business – the CBI must be hoping that he’s lying | Simon Jenkins

Telling employers that a vote for him would ‘end uncertainty over Brexit’ and he would ‘set business free’ are pure fantasies

Why would anyone in business vote for Boris Johnson? His pretend courting of the CBI and others is another of his one-night stands. Just now, what he needs are the votes of “Labour leavers”, not capitalist remainers. So at the CBI conference on Monday he fobbed off the latter with Johnsonian lies.

The biggest whopper is that a vote for him would “end uncertainty over Brexit”. It will not, it will pro...lies.

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The US and Britain face no existential threat. So why do their wars go on? | Simon Jenkins

Endless conflicts in the Middle East have cost us dear, yet all we hear are absurdities about ‘keeping our streets safe from terror’

Why does no one mention the war? The most militaristic, belligerent and chauvinist country I know – and also love – is the US. People fly flags from every post and see “bad guys” under every bed. When the president, Donald Trump, vows to leave the Middle East he is condemned as a traitor even by his fans.

The second most belligerent is Britain, albeit less so. With America, it is c...fans.

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The continuing UK ban on cannabis-based painkillers is absurd and inhumane | Simon Jenkins

Politicians running scared of big pharma and the taboo around cannabis are blocking access to these vital drugs

That the government will allow a few serious epilepsy and multiple sclerosis sufferers to get cannabidiol medicine to relieve their symptoms is good news. That is all that can be said. Once more a decision emerges from the caverns of Britain’s NHS that reveals the evils of a politicised, centralised, deadened health service.

Related: Legalisation of cannabis in the UK would help protect its users from harm |...service.

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If you want my floating vote, give me true radicalism | Simon Jenkins

The country is crying out for sweeping social policy reforms, but not even Labour dares challenge the status quo

I am a serial floating voter. I see every election as a new dawn, an exercise not in bias confirmation but in self-discovery. What will it reveal of my outlook on life? Usually I follow my hero, the American HL Mencken, who advised voters to “always chuck the rapscallions out”, but I still want some excitement in the air. Above all, what would I like to see change?

Related: I’m stuck in a hosp...change?

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The NHS needs more than just cash. It needs major reform too | Simon Jenkins

An NHS boss says just show them the money, don’t ‘politicise’ the health service this election. But its problems run deeper

Don’t politicise the NHS say the health professionals. Let us get on with the job. The health service providers’ chief executive, Chris Hopson, pleads for the health service not to be “weaponised” or “demonised” in the election. Just give it more money.

The NHS has been political since the day it was born. Politics has served it well, making it ever vaster and ever more resistant to change. More than an...money.

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Ignore Zuckerberg’s self-serving rubbish. Facebook must be regulated | Simon Jenkins

Intrusion, bullying, obscenity, extremism: we must define what ‘online harm’ means and take action to eradicate it

Let us be grateful for small mercies. Thank you Twitter for banning political advertising. Given that such advertising is by its nature biased, tendentious and hard to check, Twitter is behaving as a good publisher should. Politicians may make full use of its outlet. That is democracy. But as the organisation’s chief, Jack Dorsey, points out, with social media awash in “micro-targeting, deepfakes,...it

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The only reason we’re having an election is because of MPs’ cynicism | Simon Jenkins

A win for Boris Johnson would lead to a ruinous hard Brexit. How are opposition parties acting in the country’s interest?

Battle stations. The coming election is just the prelude. This month should have seen Britain’s formal withdrawal from the EU, on Boris Johnson’s deal, prior to serious trade talks with Brussels next year. The election should have taken place after, not before, formal withdrawal, to elect a parliament to conduct those negotiations – and with the outcome of those talks then validated by a referendum....interest?

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An election would liberate Boris Johnson. But first he must get his deal through | Simon Jenkins

The prime minister has targeted 12 December. Yet if he wants to ‘get Brexit done’, he’ll have to compromise on the withdrawal bill

The remainers have screwed up. After three years of dithering since the 2016 referendum, this last gasp of Britain’s liberal establishment, once so confident and unassailable, has become a drawn-out howl of anguish. Ever since one of its former members, Boris Johnson, turned Caliban, he has roamed the political landscape, taunting his old associates at every turn. He threate...bill

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Concrete bungle: how public fury stopped the 1970s plan to turn London into a motorway

It would have led to the demolition of more houses than were destroyed by the Luftwaffe. But the march of ‘traffic modernism’ was no match for people power

It was a true year of revolution. In 1973, Londoners, for the first time in their modern history, had taken direct action against those purporting to rule them and scored a signal victory. It was an event that had more impact on the face of the capital than any since the great fire of London.

The genesis of the battle lay in an extraordinary plan from the ac...London.

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