Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 80

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...

The banana republic of Surrey has shown local council funding is broken | Simon Jenkins

If Surrey’s ‘secret deal’ is to be a harbinger of a new health and care service then the whole murky world of local government funding needs rethinking

The algebra is simple. The NHS is having another terrible winter. It does not collapse, but “spills demand” on to the next line of defence, local government welfare. But while the NHS gets more money annually from the Treasury, local government gets less, some 30% less since 2011. It cannot cope with the new pressure.

The equation resolves itsel...

People who’ve fallen through the net won’t get a home from Sajid Javid | Simon Jenkins

The secretary of state for community’s plan is ill-conceived. Public money should switch to social housing – to need, and not demand

This week’s housing white paper is nothing of the sort. It is a stew of fake news, old cliches and pretend solutions. The communities secretary, Sajid Javid, says the “housing market is broken”, parroting his predecessor, Eric Pickles, who claimed to have mended it. Javid’s policy tosses in the old saw that “Britain needs to build 245,000 new houses a year to mee...

Don’t let philistine developers wreck our urban heritage | Simon Jenkins

There’s no point having conservation areas if they are not conserved. The government’s ruling on Paddington cube will be pivotal

fSajid Javid, the communities secretary, must decide this week whether to call in one of the most critical decisions in urban planning. Westminster city council wants to allow a “starchitect”, Renzo Piano, to erect a 19-storey glass cube in a conservation area directly overlooking Paddington station.

The cube is supposedly an alternative to the 72-storey Paddington po...

Why the EU’s fuss over Trump’s ambassador pick? He’s perfectly cast | Simon Jenkins

The European parliament is outraged at Trump’s choice of ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch. It’d be better off treating him as a challenge to win over

If there is one thing that unites the European Union’s establishment it is an aversion to attacks on its power and privilege. Hence the European parliament’s response to the “outrageous malevolence” of Donald Trump’s choice of US ambassador to the EU, Ted Malloch. All the major political groups apparently want him declared persona non grata.

Rel...

We’re over the digital revolution. This is the age of experience | Simon Jenkins

The web has upended all our lives. The return of books, vinyl and Kodak film shows we long to employ technology as a servant, not a master

Stepping outside the bubble of gloom this week I noticed something surreal. Kodak was reviving its Ektachrome film range to meet a surging demand for high-end traditional film. Was this the same Kodak, I wondered, that went bankrupt in 2012 after 47,000 job losses, a moment hailed by seers as when the digital revolution finally came of age? It now appe...

Three cheers for the Theresa May doctrine | Simon Jenkins

The PM’s foreign policy speech in the US is an outbreak of common sense. But she and Donald Trump must also articulate a coherent alternative to belligerence

Even the darkest clouds can have silver linings. Theresa May’s words on landing yesterday in America could not be clearer: “The days of Britain and America intervening in sovereign countries in an attempt to remake the world in our own image are over.”

True, May felt obliged to incant the fake chumminess of all British prime ministers sett...