Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 81

Post-truth politics will be debunked by online facts | Simon Jenkins

Donald Trump’s lies are part of a long tradition of political mendacity that holds far fewer fears in the age of digital media

The new American president, Donald Trump, celebrated his first day in office with a barefaced lie. He said that his inauguration crowd was bigger than Barack Obama’s. As lies go it was no big deal, but it was still a lie. Within minutes, camera technology and social media had reduced Trump’s boast to ruins. His supporters briefly resorted to “alternative facts”, but ra...

Banks are moving workers, inflation is up. Project Fear is coming true | Simon Jenkins

This week two big banks, HSBC and UBS, honoured their threats about moving jobs from the UK. The grim reality is ‘hard’ Brexit will be tough for many of us

The tumult and the shouting dies. From hysterical prediction slowly emerges the grim reality. Now the prospect comes into view that the remainers’ Project Fear might just have been true after all. They just got the timing wrong.

Related: Goldman Sachs stalls plan to move jobs to UK amid Brexit uncertainty

Related: Is the City of London goi...

This is Brexit poker - and Theresa May was right to up the stakes | Simon Jenkins

It was strategically sensible to begin the skirmishes in uncompromising mood. The inevitable compromises will come later

The siege of Harfleur was a disaster for the English. Henry V was humiliated and had to abandon his march on Paris, turning instead to confront the French cavalry at Agincourt. Here he faced overwhelming odds but decided to rely on bluff, cunning and Welsh archers to rescue a shred of glory from his European venture.

Theresa May must hope she is somewhere between Ha...

Poorer men are being driven out of full-time work. Here’s why | Simon Jenkins

The south-east booms while other regions stagnate, and low-paid, part-time jobs proliferate – a smarter safety net is needed to remedy growing imbalances

The latest figures for employment are as good as they are bad – and as intriguing. Unemployment continues to fall, now below 5%, a level not seen since before the 1970s recession. The Office for National Statistics has announced that average pay rose last year by 2.4%. Even the pay gap fell. “Income for the poorest fifth was up 5% and for the...

With Barack Obama’s exit the US is losing a saint. But a sinner may make a better president | Simon Jenkins

If a good man like Barack Obama fails to deliver on his promises, is it inevitable that a bad man like Donald Trump will do worse?

Does a good man make a good president – and a bad man a bad one? Barack Obama’s leaving speech in Chicago on Tuesday night was as uplifting as his arrival speech in November 2008. It exuded optimism, moderation and generosity. He was neither triumphalist nor sectarian. Ever adept at masking cliche with rhetoric, he turned “Yes we can” to “Yes we did”.

Related: The...

Economists have completely failed us. They’re no better than Mystic Meg | Simon Jenkins

On Brexit and the 2008 crash their predictions – distorted by politics – were utterly wrong. The profession owes the public an inquest and an apology

It is official. Figures for the past six months show that the forecasts of instant Brexit catastrophe from the Treasury and the Bank of England were garbage. The Bank’s economist, Andrew Haldane, admitted yesterday that it was a repeat of the failure to predict the 2008 crash. It was another “Michael Fish moment”, when meteorologists failed to fo...

After Ivan Rogers, Britain will still need friends in Europe – and diplomats | Simon Jenkins

The EU ambassador’s resignation shows that the Brexit war machine set up by Theresa May is not fit for purpose

Brexit is the black hole of British politics, a place of dark matter, strange attractors and bent time. It has now sent Sir Ivan Rogers spinning, screaming into its void. People stop in the street and ask, “What can it all mean?”

Related: Ambassador to EU quits and warns staff over 'muddled thinking'

Britain is for ever part of Europe. It will always have enemies there, and need frien...

The hacking is 21st-century, but US-Russia relations are stuck in the past | Simon Jenkins

While Moscow’s cyberwar capacity is cutting-edge, the flurry of expulsions and misguided sanctions simply rehash the mistakes of the cold war

So Barack Obama expels 35 Russian diplomats because Moscow apparently hacked the American election campaign. Big deal. The gesture is, as Moscow replies, “the death throes of political corpses”. In another bout of this archaic ritual, Russia threatened to close Moscow’s Anglo-American school and expel a batch of Americans from Moscow – though Vladimir Pu...

Don’t let the news get you down – things will get better, they always do | Simon Jenkins

We live longer, with better access to water, power and health services and less violence. Hope lies in these statistics, not in the horror of headlines

Hope is a slave to news; we should never forget it. And news has always been bad. Its currency is unspeakable horror, with hatred and doom darkening every horizon. News defies us to peer through the gloom and ever see light ahead.

The answer lies not in downgrading hope, it lies in downgrading news. For it is not what it purports to be – the rea...

Trump’s latest tweet about nuclear weapons is both daft and dangerous | Simon Jenkins

The president-elect’s promise to enlarge the US nuclear arsenal shows a woeful grasp of how the world, and wars, work today

After comes post-sense. The curt utterances of Donald Trump recall those of the oracle at Delphi, except that its enigmas were clever. The president-elect’s latest 140-hieroglyph message on nuclear weapons is either daft or dangerous – and therefore both.

So far in foreign policy, Trumpism has included welcome signs of realpolitik. The new man has hinted at scep...