Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 75

Barcelona is Europe’s seventh vehicle attack in a year. What can be done? | Simon Jenkins

The white van has become the poor man’s guided missile. We must work out how to retain a balance between defacing cities and averting risk

Europe has endured seven acts of vehicle terrorism in the past year, and the Barcelona killer was apparently able just to walk away. What on earth can be done?

Events yesterday in Calatonia suggest that, as with the London Bridge attacks of last spring, police are getting better at responding to these acts of carnage. The swift erection of barriers and the s...

With every sneer, liberals just make Trump stronger | Simon Jenkins

Critics seem obsessed with attacking the president. They would better off reaching out to his supporters

Did I tell you Donald Trump is a vulgar, foul-mouthed, meat-faced, 71-year-old redneck buffoon? To be honest, he is a fossil-fuel guzzling, Big Mac-eating, pussy-grabbing, racist dick. He has hubris syndrome with paranoid narcissistic disorder. Do you read his tweets? The English is dreadful. How can a man run the country who is so uncouth, with that hair, those ties, those baggy suits? He...

Stop fretting about poorer men being single and get on with tackling poverty | Simon Jenkins

Endless leftwing research into Britain’s growing gap between rich and poor is a waste of time. We need to set aside partisan politics and act

Men from poor families are more likely to be single. So says the august Institute for Fiscal Studies. This follows studies “showing” that poor people are getting poorer and rich richer, that poor young people are getting poorer than their parents, and than old people. Poor people die younger. They get divorced more often. They do worse at school. They ea...

Vermeer was an authentic artistic genius – even if he did cheat | Simon Jenkins

Who cares if, as a sensational new book argues, the painter traced and copied to achieve his effects? What matters is that the end results were sublime

Johannes Vermeer was a cheat. He was a printmaker, a tracer, a copyist. Some might say he was not a real artist at all. So suggests Jane Jelley in a new book, Traces of Vermeer, on the Dutch master. It is borderline sensational.

Related: Vermeer: the artist who taught the world to see ordinary beauty

Related: Girl With The Pearl Earring: what'...

Without Irish unification, a hard Brexit is impossible | Simon Jenkins

Any additional border controls would further isolate the north’s struggling economy. The DUP must fight for a single market and open borders

Is Northern Ireland the poison pill of hard Brexit? The visit of the new Irish prime minister, Leo Varadkar, to Belfast today is remarkable. This is not just for the astonishing sight of a southern politician who believes passionately in gay rights visiting the still conservative north – given how long the south’s reactionary Catholicism has been butt of...

Do your fellow Brits a favour. Stop going on holiday | Simon Jenkins

We’re addicted to travel, and the government is our pusher, tempting us into ever more hellish journeys

I’m in a hurry. You’re in my way. They are bloody tourists. My journey is vital, yours discretionary and theirs absurdly unnecessary. Transport policy has always been the orchestration of selfishness. This coming week, travel to Europe’s most popular air destinations will apparently be hell. “Security” will mean hours of queues at immigration, though the delays seem curiously aimed...

Cheers! Drinking’s good for us again – but can the medical hype be trusted? | Simon Jenkins

Blind faith in scientific health claims – and headlines – can be dangerous, especially given the growing menace of online self-diagnosis

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

That’s OK then. A pint a day keeps the doctor away. A pint of beer, that is. Yes, it used to be a pint of milk, but that was before milk was bad for you. Go to work on an egg was the same. Now it is our old friend alcohol that is back in favour. Seven pints of beer, or a bottle and a half of wine, dramatically cut whethe...

Hardliners won’t like this soft Brexit plan. Tough – we have little choice | Simon Jenkins

Few want visas for Europe, fruit farms closing, or NHS staff sent packing. None of that need happen if we negotiate properly

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist, author and broadcaster

At last the fog is starting to clear around Britain’s Brexit negotiating position. The cloud is lifting, and we can see what lies beyond. It is nothing. There is no negotiating position. There is just an unbridgeable gap between idea and practicality. That gap continues to mesmerise political conversatio...

Brexit without transition is like skydiving without insurance | Simon Jenkins

Britain is going to leave the EU, as commanded by the electorate. But leave has a thousand meanings. An interim deal must be chosen over chaos

• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Of course there must be a Brexit transition deal. Brexit without transition is skydiving without insurance. Leavers and remainers must agree on that. The Brexit talks are clearly not going well, even on the simplest of issues. The idea that in 18 months every one of a hundred topics will be done and dusted is stupi...

Don’t write off Theresa May. Like Margaret Thatcher, she can bounce back | Simon Jenkins

Unpopular. Enemies everywhere. The parallels with 1981 are uncanny. But if the prime minister keeps her nerve, she can buy time to see off any challenge
• Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

She’s in trouble, big trouble. Westminster is alive with leaks of cabinet rows. Government policy is a shambles. The lobby is a cauldron of midsummer madness. The prime minister has lost her grip. She must go, by Christmas if not by the party conference. It’s only a matter of when, not if.

Related: My Tor...