Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 68

The Quakers are right. We don’t need God | Simon Jenkins

The group is considering dropping God from its meetings guidance as it makes some feel uncomfortable. This is the new religiosity

The Quakers are clearly on to something. At their annual get-together this weekend they are reportedly thinking of dropping God from their “guidance to meetings”. The reason, said one of them, is because the term “makes some Quakers feel uncomfortable”. Atheists, according to a Birmingham University academic, comprise a rising 14% of professed Quakers, while a full...

Could Bradford be the Shoreditch of Yorkshire – or is it the next Detroit?

High levels of unemployment and poverty mean Bradford is often dubbed Britain’s most struggling city – can local developers kickstart its revival?

I first fell in love with a long lost Bradford. The city I worked in briefly in my youth still had mills towering over its hillsides and tycoon mansions lining Manningham Lane. The centre was a tight group of Victorian palaces and wool warehouses. It could just echo TS Eliot’s assurance, sitting “like a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire”. There wer...

May has cost Rudd her job – but we haven’t seen the last of her | Simon Jenkins

The next home secretary must end the obsession with removals and the Home Office’s unethical behaviour must be investigated

The Home Office has long been the valley of the shadow of death. Even Amber Rudd’s ability and closeness to Theresa May could not protect her from a policy that her prime minister had insisted she enforce and defend. By Sunday night, the only victor was the English language. “We don’t have targets for removals” crashed head-on into “a target of achieving 12,800 enforced r...

Will we stand by and watch the privatisation of our forests? | Simon Jenkins

The Forestry Commission is party to semi-commercial development that could be devastating for our countryside. It should know better

There is something murky down in the forest. In 2010, the Cameron government was so shocked at the reaction to its planned privatisation of the Forestry Commission that it backed off. It said it had abandoned the whole idea. It lied. It just privatised in secret.

Plans have emerged of the commission’s proposals for Mortimer Forest outside Ludlow, an exquisite stre...

Online anonymity has turned a global village into a lynch mob | Simon Jenkins

We don’t actually know who is behind the antisemitic abuse on social media groups associated with the Labour party. We must unmask them

There is something strange in Labour’s antisemitism row. The abuse described by Labour MPs in the Commons on Tuesday was awful. Attacks on anyone on grounds of their race or religion are indefensible. Jeremy Corbyn’s support for certain lobbyists (and murals) indicates a serious lack of judgment, but being anti-Israel does not make him antisemitic, a...

Why high streets don't need shops to survive | Simon Jenkins

Shoe shops and banks may be dying out but the ‘experience economy’ offers a future for town centres. They must grasp it

Is it really goodbye shop? This has been another terrible month for retailing. Monday’s figures show March footfall down 6% on last year, and almost 9% down in high streets. Clothing is in freefall, down 20%. My two local high streets – one rich, one poor – both look as if they’ve been hit by the plague, with naked windows pockmarked by “For Sale...

High streets put the heart into cities. The web can’t compete with that | Simon Jenkins

Shoe shops and banks may be dying out but the ‘experience economy’ offers a future for town centres. They must grasp it

Is it really goodbye shop? This has been another terrible month for retailing. Monday’s figures show March footfall down 6% on last year, and almost 9% down in high streets. Clothing is in freefall, down 20%. My two local high streets – one rich, one poor – both look as if they’ve been hit by the plague, with naked windows pockmarked by “For Sale...

Look at Syria, and you can see all the elements that have led to world wars | Simon Jenkins

It’s hard to believe the west’s leaders are letting this escalate. Have we learned nothing from history?

What on earth are we doing? I have not heard a single expert on Syria explain how dropping missiles on that country will advance the cause of peace or lead its dictator, Bashar al-Assad, to back down. It will merely destroy buildings and probably kill people. It is pure populism, reflected in the hot-and-cold rhetoric of Trump’s increasingly whimsical tweets. Heaven forbid that British poli...

Only Assad’s victory will end Syria’s civil war. The west can do nothing | Simon Jenkins

The chemical attack in Douma was horrific. But western military intervention would only prolong Syria’s suffering

The only option now open to the west in Syria is whether or not to make it worse. No amount of grandstanding, feelgood rhetoric or intermittent bombing is going to impede the Assad regime’s path to victory in its civil war. It must now be obvious that every ounce of aid given by the west to the Syrian opposition since 2011 has just prolonged that country’s agony. Seven years ago, w...

Resist the calls for ‘solutions’ to London’s murder surge | Simon Jenkins

Any upturn in the crime rate is a tragedy. But beware those who offer quick-fixes or New York-inspired crackdowns

An intruder is stabbed to death during a burglary in London’s Hither Green. Across town in Hackney, two men are killed by stabbing. The killings sent London’s 2018 death tally to 50, up by a half on the same period last year. Britain is facing a “murder crisis”. Or is it facing a crisis in the journalism – and politics – of statistics?

Personal tragedies are hard not to report. Carn...