Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 73

Catalonia isn’t just Spain’s nightmare – it is Europe’s | Simon Jenkins

With Basques, Bretons, Bavarians and many more eyeing the outcome of events, could this be the moment to formalise various levels of autonomy?

The EU countries may be right that Catalonia is legally a matter of Spanish constitutional law. But they should also be frightened. Catalonia is Europe’s problem.

The imprisonment on remand of eight Catalan politicians, on blatantly political charges, and the Belgian asylum sought by its president, appears to be an engineered confrontation.

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Donald Trump’s reaction to terror? To make America terrified again | Simon Jenkins

The president promises further immigration controls, but there was no hint of ‘extreme vetting’ for gun-owners in the wake of the Las Vegas massacre

Drive a truck down a New York street and knock people down, and you’re “a sick and deranged person”. But what if you drive a truck down a New York street, knock people down and shout, “Allahu Akbar”? You are a Muslim terrorist, a global news story and a threat to the security of nations. You drive a president to “extreme vettin...

Catalonia’s independence movement is not just a problem for Spain | Simon Jenkins

Aversion to centralised power is destabilising states across Europe. The EU ignores this growing desire for regional autonomy at its own risk

Catalonia is wrong. Madrid is right. There is a Spanish constitution which clearly lays down the sovereignty and integrity of the Spanish state. There is no provision for breaking away. Catalonia, despite its distinctive past, has long acquiesced in the Spanish constitution and has no legal right to become independent. On that point the law is clear.

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Enough moaning about Brexit: remainers must say what they’re for | Simon Jenkins

Leaving is inevitable but doesn’t need to be chaos, whatever Michael Bloomberg says. We need a concerted lobby for a soft Brexit

It was the best of decisions, it was the worst of decisions. It was the season of light, it was the season of darkness … the hope of spring, the winter of despair. Dickens had Brexit about right. It is Britain’s French revolution. No one, absolutely no one, has a clue how it will turn out.

London’s new inward investor, the former New York mayor Mic...

Is violent crime on the rise – or do the latest figures mask a different story? | Simon Jenkins

The unbelievable ONS statistics scream of an alarming crime surge, but they only reflect reporting activity. These misleading figures should be banned

The Home Office should ban the Office for National Statistics from issuing “police-recorded crime figures”, the latest batch of which were published yesterday. These statistics are part of a concerted campaign by police forces in England and Wales to resist cuts, boost budgets and bias workloads. Headlines indicate knife crime “highest for six y...

The head of MI5 has lost the plot. Britain is safer than ever in its history | Simon Jenkins

Andrew Parker seems to have suffered a panic attack this week. Random acts of terror don’t threaten the UK’s existence

Oh my God, the Muslims are going to get us. Watch out. Our national security is “more under threat than ever”. Our lives are seeing a “dramatic upshift” in threat levels, with “plots from overseas, plots online, complex scheming and crude stabbings, lengthy planning but also spontaneous attacks”. MI5 boss Andrew Parker seemed close to a panic attack on Tuesday. He found threat...

Theresa May needs a ‘coalition of the sane’ to stave off Brexit calamity | Simon Jenkins

There is no public or business demand for a cliff-edge Brexit. The prime minister has to work with other parties to sideline the Tories’ extremist minority

So high are the Brexit stakes that divorce talks were always likely to go to the line. After yesterday’s “deadlock”, this appears to be the case. There must surely be an urgent heads of government session, at least involving Britain, France and Germany, to cut a deal on cash and talks on trade. It is time to bring on the grownups.

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The tech giants operate like cars without brakes. They must be reined in | Simon Jenkins

Intimidation, grooming, exploitation: we pay too high a price for the internet’s wonders. The state has to introduce far tougher regulation

The stupidest article I ever wrote, in the 1990s, forecast that the internet would benefit just two groups of people: lawyers and pornographers. I was wrong. I and millions of others have benefited vastly from this innovation. But I was right in one respect: that its blessings would be mixed.

Not a day passes without apocalyptic wails against the internet....

In Manchester, May showed that her nerve – if not her voice – holds firm | Simon Jenkins

I suspect the prime minister will emerge curiously strengthened by her speech. She may be unpopular, but survive she will. For the time being

Gone by the autumn: that was the conventional wisdom when Theresa May failed to win her election majority last summer. She was a dead woman walking. She would not even make it to her party conference, let alone survive it.

She is still there, and shows no signs of leaving. So much for the conventional wisdom, biased always to apocalypse and bored by conti...

10 of the best railway stations in Britain

Simon Jenkins’ new book tells the history of Britain’s railways through the island’s 100 best stations. We pick 10 gems, from grand old York to a Highland outpost

Nowhere is British railway architecture so honoured as in Huddersfield, one of the few stations fit to rank with the great union terminuses of the continent. Sir John Betjeman declared it “the most splendid facade in England”. The main entrance presides over St George’s Square with a princely confidence, focus of what is a rare survi...