Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 69

The UK justice system is in meltdown. When will the government act? | Simon Jenkins

Rising violence, a creaking court and prison system – drastic cuts have brought us to this crisis. They must be reconsidered

Britain’s criminal justice system is in disarray. The head of the crown prosecution service, Alison Saunders, is resigning amid rows over failed convictions. The head of the Parole Board has been forced to resign over the Worboys case. London’s murder rate has overtaken New York’s, with fatal stabbings in Britain at their highest level since 2010. Prison violence and sui...

Happy Easter to you. Now let’s nationalise our churches | Simon Jenkins

Church buildings should revert to places of congregation, comfort and enterprise – through liberation from the church

Lonely this Easter, depressed, in need of company or just escaping Facebook tyranny? Why not go to church? Or rather go not to church but to “a church”, one where no one preaches or expects you to pray? The number of beautiful but deserted churches in England is turning from an Anglican anguish into a national scandal. There are 16,000 Church of England churches in England alon...

It’s just not cricket. But ball-tampering is what you’d expect in today’s world | Simon Jenkins

If we cannot trust each other in sport, we can hardly put our faith in an election result – or a president

So sportsmen cheat. Big deal. Sometimes they get caught. Bad luck. Sometimes they cheat blatantly and are accused of “stupidity”. Australians used to pride themselves on the belligerence of their cricketers, as against the genteel northern hemisphere’s “sportsmanship”. What seems to have hurt most in the latest ball-tampering scandal is not the tampering but the idiocy. From booing terrac...

At last, good news on Brexit: Britain is heading for Norway | Simon Jenkins

Theresa May’s transition deal hints at the best option: remaining in the single market – plus the customs union

Norway here we come. This is the good news on the Brexit front. It will take two years. The voyage will be stormy and the destination messy. But plus-or-minus Norway offers the only sensible way for Britain through the Brexit morass. Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn and Keir Starmer agree. Nick Clegg agrees. Most of the cabinet and the Tories’ remainers publicly or privately agree. So do those...

Anna Campbell’s death in Syria was futile, but her passion was admirable | Simon Jenkins

The humanitarian sympathy she showed by leaving Britain to fight for the Kurds should not be dismissed

“She wanted to create a better world and would do everything in her power to do that.” The words of Anna Campbell’s father on her death in Syria convey the heartbreak any parent would feel. She was, he said, “young, idealistic, passionate, brave, determined”. He was “in pieces”.

Related: British woman killed fighting Turkish forces in Afrin

Related: 'Hundreds of us will die in Raqqa’: the wo...

After the Skripal attack, talk of war only plays into Vladimir Putin’s hands | Simon Jenkins

Theresa May’s language in the wake of events in Salisbury has been unhelpful, given our history of provoking Russia

Do we really want war with Russia? Do we want to risk one, even a tiny one? The prospect has certainly taken British minds off Brexit. It has exhilarated the press. It has given Theresa May an immense boost and helped the defence lobby in its campaign for more money. There is nothing democracy seems to enjoy so much as contemplating war, to unite it and raise its spirits. It is n...

Liverpool prison is a symbol of our broken system. Send the inmates home | Simon Jenkins

The jail’s squalid conditions are shocking, reflecting the failure of the UK’s system as a whole. Do these prisoners really need to be locked up?

Prisons are Britain’s dirty little secret. Hospitals may be overcrowded, roads congested, teachers exhausted and students offended. These woes pale against the disgrace that is Britain’s prisons. The news that two long-serving workers at Liverpool jail have been sacked for complaining about conditions caps a litany of dire inspections of this establi...

Nerve gas in Salisbury, drones in Syria: is there a moral difference? | Simon Jenkins

The attempted murder of a former Russian spy is rightly condemned. Yet Britain advocates the execution of its own citizens in the Middle East. It’s sheer hypocrisy

In 2015 a British student from Cardiff, Reyaad Khan, was killed in Syria by an RAF drone bomb, presumably “piloted” from Lincolnshire. A House of Commons report later accepted that he was “orchestrating and inciting” terrorist attacks in Britain, but could not discover how imminent the attacks were or the legal basis for his killing...

Theresa May wants to have her cake and eat it with housebuilding too | Simon Jenkins

In trying to woo millennials and keep the Tory shires sweet, the government’s message on planning policy is mixed at best

Theresa May is becoming the maestro of contradiction. Over the weekend she announced the most savagely centralised planning regime in English history. Housing targets are to be imposed on every local authority – irrespective of where they are or the state of local demand. She sees provincial England as the Soviets saw power stations: as a statistical blob. Any council that...

Skunk is causing misery – criminalisation isn’t working | Simon Jenkins

Drugs reform has been urged by doctors and police chiefs. Yet our politicians have failed to act, and the consequences have been disastrous

Can Britain ever kill its worst taboo? This week’s news of the soaring prevalence of skunk, in place of weaker and less harmful herbal forms of cannabis, is appalling. With other news of prison chaos due to an epidemic of artificial cannabis (spice), government drugs policy is devoid of coherence – and clearly lethal. Deaths from drug misuse are now at an...