Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 56

Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt will have to ditch no deal – or face an election | Simon Jenkins

The Tory leadership contenders’ tough talk is irresponsible. In reality a hard Brexit would spark a parliamentary crisis

The Tory leadership bid has become a miniature general election on a single issue: no-deal Brexit. It is an election on the narrowest franchise since the 18th century. As a result it is being conducted like a public-school stunt, a sneer in the face of those who will be its principal victims. We don’t care what it costs, say Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, as the Treasury blo...

Boris Johnson is clearly hiding from scrutiny – even diehard fans may start to have doubts | Simon Jenkins

How long can party members dazzled by the would-be Tory leader’s glamour ignore the evidence before them?

Cowardly, untrustworthy, disrespectful, unmanly, slinking into office through the back door. Thus did Tory leadership candidate Jeremy Hunt describe his rival Boris Johnson. And that, as the historian Edward Gibbon said of a dodgy pope, was Hunt declining to mention “the most scandalous charges”.

A nocturnal spat, supposedly over a wine stain, between Johnson and his girlfriend, Carrie Symo...

Hunt and Johnson are wildly different, but it’s the latter who can deliver Brexit | Simon Jenkins

The former foreign secretary would roar, skid, veer and cheat, but would be more likely to carry Brexiters with him

Now there are two. The choice of Britain’s next prime minister devolves to the Tory faithful – to many Britons a disconcerting prospect. The Tory leadership election has been an eccentric display of parliamentary oligarchy. It is the British way.

Boris Johnson is now clear favourite to win. His rival Jeremy Hunt has emerged hesitantly from an uninspiring field, in which only the o...

Heathrow’s third runway plan beggars belief. So don’t expect Boris Johnson to block it | Simon Jenkins

The strategy unveiled this week by the airport is monstrous – and the former London mayor has gone quiet about opposing it

I will lie down in front of those bulldozers and stop the construction of that third runway … Heathrow is just undeliverable, and the sooner we face that the sooner our salvation.”

This was then London mayor Boris Johnson’s most famous pledge, made in 2015. Expanding an airport on the outskirts of a major city, he told delighted listeners, was “the kind of thing that could...

Hail to the oxymoron-in-chief, Boris Johnson | Simon Jenkins

Rory Stewart might be the only honest candidate amid his rivals’ Brexit lies, but the crown is Johnson’s

Boris Johnson was right: group debates are awful. Last night was Love Island with one-liners, five rivals pouting and shouting at the same time. Since viewers have no voice or vote in the outcome, what was the point? Job interviews should be conducted individually, not as a group.

Related: Silence is golden as Boris's lectern wins Tory televised debate | John Crace

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Boris Johnson may be an incompetent liar, but charm is his secret weapon | Simon Jenkins

His record as London mayor is farcical. Yet disillusioned Labour voters are as mesmerised by him as punch-drunk Tories

Charm is politics’ deadliest weapon. It is not charisma, the authority to lead through an electrifying presence. It is a subtler, more intangible quality, possessed by Boris Johnson. He may be blatantly unqualified as Britain’s next prime minister, but following yesterday’s first-round leadership ballot, he is still odds-on favourite. The basis for this lies in his disposition...

It’s ridiculous that Michael Gove’s drug use could prevent him becoming Tory leader | Simon Jenkins

He is by far the most competent candidate. This hysteria is further proof that UK drug laws are in desperate need of reform

Britain’s Conservative party is having a nervous breakdown. It is turning on the most competent candidate for its leadership, Michael Gove, for sniffing cocaine in his former life as a journalist. Unlike his chief rival, Boris Johnson, who joked about his drug-taking, Gove told the sober truth. The jokester laughs, the honest man is a hypocrite.

Eight out of the 11 Tory le...

It’s time to move on from these overblown commemorations of war | Simon Jenkins

Yes we must thank those who fought to make us safe. But too much remembering is a dangerous business

The airwaves have been filled this week with tearful veterans and mournful politicians recalling D-day 1944. That is appropriate when the participants are still among us and when war’s emotions are a living memory – we should thank those who fought to make us safe. Something at least can unite the British, even if it is only the past. But when the remembering is over, then what?

Recalling past w...

The wrangling to become Tory leader is turning Britain into an oligarchy | Simon Jenkins

Boris Johnson looks likely to be the choice of the party faithful, but Brexit will prove as fatal to him as it has to May

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Britain must choose a new prime minister – and fast. Donald Trump may have been elected by just 46% or 63 million Americans, but Britain’s leader will be chosen by just 124,000 members of a benighted Conservative party. And those members must choose between two candidates preselected by their party’s 314 MPs. This is like some kind of oligarchy....

What are our universities for? Taxpayers have a right to know | Simon Jenkins

The Augar review has looked into funding. But we need a bigger vision to solve the legacy of failed marketisation

Eat your heart out, Henry VIII. Britain’s universities have pulled off the greatest institutional coup of our age. They have reversed the dissolution of these contemporary monasteries.

The rescue job on student loans performed by Philip Augar this week is expected to channel another £6bn a year of state funds into universities and colleges. Almost half the nation’s post-18 cohort –...