Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 71

Britain already throws money at defence. Ignore this Russian red herring | Simon Jenkins

The fearmongering over cyber-warfare with Russia isn’t about actual threat, it’s about vanity, history and MoD greed

The Russians are coming. The terrorists are at the door. Feel afraid, feel very afraid. Give us the money.

Every year at budget time, the defence lobby waves shrouds and howls blue murder. With yet another defence review in the offing, the army fears it will lose thousands of soldiers, while the navy and the Royal Air Force fear the (long overdue) merger of the paratroop and mari...

Don’t fixate on a second Brexit vote. Focus instead on trade | Simon Jenkins

Of course it’s possible to change our minds in a democracy. But we have to be realistic about what can and can’t be achieved

They wander Westminster with staring eyes. “Repent,” they cry, “or be doomed. We are all doomed.” They are the second-referendum adventists, the priests of the afterthought, the prophets of the second coming. They meet with decrepit peers in cobwebbed attics. They mix potions and spells, and stick pins in plasticine Theresa Mays. They are mad. As mad as the flat-earth le...

I’m not surprised by Carillion’s failure – companies like this shouldn’t exist | Simon Jenkins

The company was too big and too reliant on state contracts to be a true private entity. Government and Whitehall share the blame for its collapse

No one ever lost money doing business with the government: it was too stupid and had too much money. So went the old saying. Carillion has just proved it wrong. Britain’s second biggest construction company and state contractor has gone into liquidation. Accountants must reallocate to other firms the billions of pounds in contracts for prisons, schoo...

We laugh at Russian propaganda. But Hollywood history is just as fake | Simon Jenkins

From Churchill to Getty, the trust we rely on to interpret the world is being corroded by an entertainment industry that has lost faith in fiction

She staggers on to the screen, blood streaming from her face. Some of her wounds are flesh ones, but others are deep. Nobody cares, because her performance is sensational. Her name is truth, and she has taken a terrible beating.

The new thriller All the Money in the World, based on the kidnap of John Paul Getty III in 1973, carries an announceme...

Revenge has no place in the law – even for John Worboys | Simon Jenkins

Victims of dreadful crimes receive more compensation and sympathy than ever, and rightly so. But justice is not theirs to deliver

Retribution is poor justice. It is the short cut to lynch law and mob rule. Lock-‘em-up-and-throw-away-the key has long been the default mode of British attitudes to crime, spectacularly on display today in the worrying case of the serial sex attacker John Worboys.

No one has any idea on what basis he has been released from an indeterminate sentence after serving lon...

Will neglect drive Yorkshire to a Catalan-style revolt? | Simon Jenkins

England’s most substantial province should be on a par with Scotland, yet devolution remains a distant dream

The week before Christmas there was a minor explosion over South Yorkshire. By a majority of 85%, the people of Barnsley and Doncaster voted “Shexit”. In a twin-town referendum, they chose to have nothing to do with neighbouring Sheffield, the city region about to rule over them. They declared themselves loyal only to God’s own county, plain Yorkshire. That was good enough for them.

What...

Britain’s need for ‘drunk tanks’ shows how broken our society is | Simon Jenkins

If we can have booze buses, then why not care clubs for the isolated, vulnerable and unwell? The need is sadly all too great

Friday night in a big city casualty department is not a nice place to be. A reported 70% of patients are not really ill, just blind drunk. What on earth are they doing there?

The answer is that every social nuisance nowadays seems to lead either to a police station or A&E. In recent years, 12 British cities have been “experimenting” with so-called alcohol recovery uni...

Fining universities for no-platforming denies the idea of academic freedom | Simon Jenkins

The government says it wants to ensure free speech on campus – yet under the Prevent strategy it has its own list of banned speakers

Who has the right to decide what students hear, read or see? The National Union of Students thinks it has that right. It argues that this is a free country and it can decide whom to censor. Universities minister Jo Johnson disagrees. He sees modern students as mollycoddled snowflakes who should grow up. He intends to fine universities that shield themselves and t...

Theresa has made up with the EU leaders. Now for the Tory Brexit rebels | Simon Jenkins

The suggestion of an orderly, reasonable Brexit had them applauding in Brussels. But fundamental problems remain at home

Last night Theresa May was awarded the apparently unique accolade of applause at an EU leaders’ banquet. Excellent. But why were they applauding? Was it relief at her emollient tone? Was it encouragement for the next round in the Brexit wars, or perhaps instinctive sympathy from elected colleagues at her domestic plight? It was significant that the clapping was led by German...

Universities are bastions of privilege. They have to change | Simon Jenkins

The astronomical course fees for these bloated institutions are no longer defensible. Two-year degrees would be a good move

The ice mountain is cracking. The glaciers are loosening. The greatest cultural confidence trick since the medieval monastery is dissolving. This week the universities minister, Jo Johnson, said the unsayable: the British three-year university course, virtually unchanged in 100 years, is absurd and should end. That many foreign universities are equally conservative is nei...