Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 86

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...

Beware a boring Donald Trump. He’s more dangerous than a maverick one | Simon Jenkins

The presidential candidate’s outrageous traits are being toned down. It will damage his authenticity, but he might yet win

Donald Trump’s arrival in the UK, at a seminal moment in British history, may seem like Satan gatecrashing the Day of Judgment. But he is just opening a golf course. It’s a free country.

More intriguing is the gradual de-monsterising of Trump the phenomenon. The US media have seen him as an outrageous buffoon, a menace, an incipient tyrant, a creation of the fascist Tw...

Hatred is constrained in politics by formal safeguards. Social media has let it loose | Simon Jenkins

Jo Cox’s killing doesn’t show that order has broken down, but when social media turns antisocial, some policing regime is urgently needed

There are two griefs at the death of a public figure. One is at the loss of an individual. The other is dismay at the apparent collapse – we do not know for certain – of the protections that should discipline argument in a democracy.

No one knows the motive for the killing of Jo Cox. As in Orlando, the rush to judgment on the basis of initial witnesses and ot...

I fear German dominance. That’s why I’m for remaining in the EU | Simon Jenkins

In the end, this referendum is about politics not economics. And a Britain that votes to stay in the club will wield serious clout

Decision time is here. The dither must stop. The referendum campaign has been tedious and infuriating, but in truth enthralling. I cannot remember a political event that has so consumed public discussion. In every pub, workplace, college and home, friends have argued, families feuded, allegiances splintered. Only the 2014 Scottish referendum came near it. For two m...

The question terrorists love: ‘Can you guarantee safety at Euro 2016?’ | Simon Jenkins

Much of the impact of modern terrorism comes from overhype. Let the security services do their jobs in France without the media propagating fear

Welcome to the 2016 Terrorism Cup. What sort of a question is the one I heard on the BBC this morning: Can you “guarantee” that the games will be safe? This was asked of a French European cup official.

The question can invite only one of two answers, one a lie, the other an incitement to fear.

Nine-tenths of the impact of modern terrorism lies not in th...