Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 79

The Westminster attack is a tragedy, but it’s not a threat to democracy | Simon Jenkins

The terrorists’ aim is not just to kill a few but to terrify a multitude. For politicians and media to overreact would play into their hands

The current bout of global terrorism came to the heart of London today in a fatal attack outside the Palace of Westminster. The symbolism is impossible to escape. An assault on the home of democracy induces a peculiar sense of outrage. That people, including a policeman, should die in such an assault is tragic.

As yet, nothing is known of the motive. All t...

Independence is Scotland’s choice. May should let them get on with it | Simon Jenkins

Denying Nicola Sturgeon’s demand for a second referendum is hypocritical. One day soon, there must be a new relationship between London and Edinburgh

Theresa May is losing it. If Scotland wants to be independent, she can’t stop it. If the Scottish parliament next week demands another referendum, let it have one. Put the ball back in Edinburgh’s court. Leave Nicola Sturgeon to fight her own battles and stew in her own juice. It really does not matter. Anglo-Scottish relations should be released...

May hung Hammond out to dry over his budget U-turn | Simon Jenkins

Failing to back up a minister in trouble leaves the prime minister a pushover for backbenchers with a grievance

A screeching U-turn, a climbdown, a budgetary black hole, a humiliation. It is hard to explain the bizarre events in the Commons on Wednesday as the prime minister toppled a key pillar of her chancellor’s week-old budget. The reversal was “announced” in a letter to the Treasury committee.

Related: Good riddance to the unfair NIC tax rise. Now what about that £2bn black hole? | John M...

Theresa May’s tax climbdown shows her weakness | Simon Jenkins

About to negotiate the Brexit rapids, the prime minister has exposed herself as vulnerable to murmuring backbenchers and howling front pages

One minute you are monarch of all you survey, the next minute it all goes wobbly. Theresa May’s climbdown yesterday on Philip Hammond’s tax plans was humiliating. Overnight, £2bn in tax revenue vanished from the finance bill and evaporated into “consultation” and “further review”. The reason was equally humiliating: 18 Tory backbenchers had only to murmur...

The return of the 11-plus is Theresa May’s first real Trump moment | Simon Jenkins

Grammar schools make no sense educationally, financially or politically – and are based on a lie

Theresa May’s desire to return England to grammar schools is her first real spasm of Trumpism. It is incoherent. It makes no sense educationally, financially or politically. It is also based on a lie, that selection is about parental choice. May seems unaware that parents do not choose grammar schools, grammar schools choose children.

The policy was alluded to in the budget by the chancellor, P...

If Trump’s goal is friendship with Russia, it’s a prize worth lying for | Simon Jenkins

Underhand, reckless and naive: the US president has been some, or all, of these in pursuit of a rapprochement. But might he succeed where Obama failed?

The devil lies in the definition. Bill Clinton “never had sex with that woman”, and got away with it. Jeff Sessions never had “communication” with a Russian ambassador, Sergei Kysliak. But it depends what you mean by sex, and what you mean by communication.

Whether or not Sessions, now “America’s top cop”, as attorney-general, lied to his collea...

Hammond’s inheritance tax plans would be the revenge of the undead | Simon Jenkins

The chancellor hopes to tackle a great taboo but the debate will soon descend into a swamp of self-interest, ideology and class war

Would I tax my own children, and tax them of the sweat of my own brow? Your children, of course, should look after themselves. His children are worthless layabouts. But my children are the salt of the earth, the harbingers of humankind. The chancellor should keep his sticky paws out of their adorable pockets.

But wait. A whisper is going round that the crumbling ed...

The destruction of Britain’s high streets is no accident | Simon Jenkins

This business rate crisis is the direct result of flawed policy that penalises commerce in our town centres

Children should not play with bombs. Business rates are the cluster munitions of fiscal policy, and the chancellor, Philip Hammond, and his “communities” secretary, Sajid Javid, have been playing with them all week. They have duly exploded in high streets all over southern England. There is blood everywhere.

When I discovered that the resident of one of the most expensive flats in Lo...

On Brexit, Tony Blair should get real – and butt out | Simon Jenkins

The former PM says remainers should rise up against a referendum that duped them. In truth, it was more open to the public than some of his own decisions

It doesn’t ring true: a blemished ex-prime minister mounts a campaign against the result of a referendum he never had the guts to call. He complains that the public never had the full facts on Brexit, that they voted “without knowledge of the true terms”. He declares a “mission” to make them repent the error of their ways.

Every democratic ele...

Yes, Donald Trump is a monster. But his agenda isn’t all bad | Simon Jenkins

Insults won’t damage him – they shore up his image as a brave outsider attempting a new form of government

Did I forget to tell you? Donald Trump is a monster. He’s an idiot, a liar, a narcissist, a sex maniac, a torturer, a xenophobe. Come to that, he is a bully, a nepotist, an adulterer, thin-skinned, corrupt and fat. I should add that he is also a tiny-handed, Putin-loving, hateful, rightwing populist. And have you seen his hair?

Does that make you feel better? Is that OK? How is the weather...