Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 86

Hinkley Point is bad business. Theresa May should put it out of its misery | Simon Jenkins

David Cameron has bequeathed Britain the worst deal in the history of procurement. May cannot cave in like she did with Trident

The message of last night’s Hinkley Point fiasco could not be clearer. The project cannot go ahead. But who in government has the guts to say so?

No one without an interest in this 18bn project believes it should proceed. The sole interest of the French and Chinese builders is that David Cameron, in the worst deal in the history of procurement, effectively stuffed thei...

Denationalise the Olympics to really stamp out cheating | Simon Jenkins

The IOC has become a master at marrying greed to national leaders’ hunger for Olympic prestige

Where is the justice in this? The Russian athlete, Yuliya Stepanova, risks death by revealing the extent of Russian doping in her Olympic sport. She has to flee her country with her family, live in hiding and train in secret. She is told that, provided she is “clean”, she may compete in the Rio Olympics next week, but “as a neutral”. She is then told she cannot compete. Instead the International Olym...

At least President Trump would ground the drones | Simon Jenkins

After the ham-fisted military antics of the Obama years, the rest of the world could do with a jolt of good old-fashioned Republican isolationism

Britons are never happier than when ridiculing the vulgarity of American politics. Donald Trump’s acceptance speech at the Republican convention in Cleveland last night was therefore a gift. It was as vacuous a catalogue of cliches as Barack Obama’s “Yes we can” speeches in 2008.

This is colouring-book oratory, and intended as such. A more serious que...

Theresa May’s first test is to stand up to the lobbyists | Simon Jenkins

David Cameron promised and failed. From Trident and HS2 to Heathrow’s third runway and Hinkley Point C, we’re wasting billions while a select few cash in

We were warned – and by David Cameron, no less. In February 2010, shortly before taking office, he said “the next big scandal waiting to happen” was the “far too cosy relationship between politics, government, business and money”, the world of the political lobbyist. He knew: he was one once. He pledged he would “come clean about who is buyin...

Sympathy should be our only response to the Nice terror attack | Simon Jenkins

We should not pretend that any state can stop one madman in a truck. Most official responses are likely only to make things worse

Eighty-four people died late on Thursday night as a lorry drove for more than a mile through the Bastille Day crowds in the southern French city of Nice. The driver eventually died in a hail of police bullets. The incident, on a day when the French celebrate equality, liberty and fraternity, could hardly be more horrific.

The victims are beyond help, but the French p...

Theresa May took on the police but her new foes are far fiercer | Simon Jenkins

As she enters the valley of the shadow of Brexit, with Boris Johnson by her side, the grim steeples of Brussels and Berlin loom ahead

The House of Commons bade farewell to David Cameron today with the lighthearted generosity of spirit usual at a ritual sacrifice. It was a chamber in which he was a master. It was also his house of hubris. By the end of the day, Britain’s constitutional assassins had seen him off, and Theresa May was monarch of all she surveyed. For the time being.

Rel...

That are no lessons to learn from Chilcot. We already knew the answers | Simon Jenkins

Britain repeated the mistakes of Iraq in Libya, and would have done so in Syria had David Cameron got his way. It will repeat them again soon

Do you remember the Chilcot report? It was way back, before gun mayhem in Texas, before the Tories chose two women to contest the leadership of their party and before Nato restarted the cold war with Russia. That’s the trouble with modern history. It goes from forward to fast forward to lightning.

The Iraq war is the day before yesterday. All that survive...

Ignore the prophets of doom. Brexit will be good for Britain | Simon Jenkins

A stale leadership class is on the way out and the property bubble will burst. I can’t see the bad news

“We have had no end of a lesson: it will do us no end of good!” So said Rudyard Kipling of the Boer war, and he might well say the same today. David Cameron’s wild European gamble has failed. He and the British establishment took democracy for granted. They lined up all the toffs and boffins, the chief executives, tycoons and clever-clogs in the (south of the) land, and asked the nation to p...

Andrea Leadsom’s pitch for the Tory leadership: our writers’ verdict | The panel

In today’s speech the Brexit campaigner outlined her vision for the Conservatives and country. How successful was she?

Continue reading...

The biggest threat of Brexit is not to the UK but to the rest of Europe | Simon Jenkins

Although Britain has given itself an almighty shock, the visionary outcome of this leave vote ought to start a grand debate across the continent

A silly question was asked and a silly answer was given. That is democracy. But so is leadership. As the good ship Tory government smashes on to rocks of its own devising, David Cameron cannot desert the bridge. He has made a massive misjudgment, but it was one in which almost the entire British establishment has colluded.

They must all now perform a U...