Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 96

Our lust for Chinese investment has caught us out, Ashley Madison-style | Simon Jenkins

Sneaking off to China to beg for political investment in vanity projects that no European would touch is no route to economic recovery

China was always the Ashley Madison of public money. Finance ministers with an infrastructure problem would sneak off to Beijing for a quickie billion and return with smiles on their faces. The Chinese seemed willing and no one need know. George Osborne and David Cameron have done it for HS2 and Hinkley Point. Boris Johnson can’t keep his hands off Chinese skys...

We are slaves to the printed word, but only handwriting conveys real beauty | Simon Jenkins

The curriculum downgrades cursive writing. But the pen can communicate meaning lost on a screen

When did you last write a letter, that is really “write” one? I still struggle to handcraft thank-yous and letters of congratulation or commiseration. I take reporting notes and scrawl messages, but often cannot decipher the result. My speed-writing has long gone and I cannot imagine my fingers surviving a student essay. A page of sustained writing is a calligraphic car crash.

Related: Signing off:...

The answer to drugs in athletics? Have two races: doped and clean | Simon Jenkins

Performance drugs seem rife among athletes. Let’s all stop pretending, legalise doping and end the corruption

International sport seems unable to escape the stain of scandal. New revelations of systematic doping in athletics will surprise few who have followed the Olympics over the decades. What is astonishing is that they will not go away.

After decades of stories of athletics doping, we now learn that just four years ago a third of all competitors in the International Association of Athletics...

The angst over milk is about the future of our countryside | Simon Jenkins

The dairy farmers protesting against supermarkets are victims of a metropolitan politics which has turned their world into a fear-ridden battleground

Were farmers on the march? Did cows troop through Tesco mooing in protest at the outrageous high prices being charged for milk, thus risking oversupply and a price bubble? I don’t recall it. That was back in 2006, when the farm-gate price of milk boomed from 18p a litre to 26p in 2008, and then to 32p by 2013, while feed prices fell and profits s...

We don’t need exams to be a grand national teenage bake-off | Simon Jenkins

Success at school has very little to do with success in life – whatever the ‘system’ would like you to believe

Who needs Jeremy Corbyn when we have education minister Nick Gibb? As the Conservative government seeks to end local control of schools, its next target for nationalisation is exams. Gibb says he is “upset and angry” at the performance of the four private exam boards, not least following the computer fiasco of one of them, OCR, last year. It makes no sense, he says, “to have three or...

How easy it is to convict the dead and defenceless | Simon Jenkins

The case against Edward Heath looks flimsy, but already the gutter is being dredged for lurid, unsubstantiated claims

That’s it then. Sir Edward Heath was a paedophile. It has been on the news for four days, so it must be true. They might just be allegations, but we know there is “no smoke without fire”. The chap was a “confirmed bachelor”, nudge, nudge. They are always a bit fishy, these lonely sorts.

I suppose many people just shrug and say public figures must take the rough with the smooth,...

China’s schools are testing factories. Why is Britain so keen to copy them? | Simon Jenkins

Our government seems determined to move towards the Chinese style of hothousing pupils, just as China is waking up to the folly of such methods

This evening the BBC will carry forward the great myth that Chinese education is “better” than Britain’s. A documentary comparing Chinese and British teachers in a Hampshire school will show Chinese teachers appalled at how disruptive, challenging and idle British pupils could be. That, by implication, is why Chinese children do better, far better, in...

To save lions like Cecil, turn poachers into gamekeepers | Simon Jenkins

Big game hunts outrage the west, but South Africa shows that sustainable ranching is more effective than bans

A dentist from Wisconsin goes hunting in Zimbabwe and bags its most famous lion, Cecil. In response, Cecil’s friends have gone hunting in Minnesota in the hope of bagging its most infamous dentist, Walter Palmer. Welcome to the world of charismatic mega-species, their predators and protectors. One thing only is for sure, the predators are winning.

Last month the Dallas Safari Club annou...

When it comes to corruption, Britain really should shut up | Simon Jenkins

David Cameron’s sudden passion for transparency comes after five years of buy-to-leave property purchasing, lobbying and a visit to Kazakhstan’s dictator

David Cameron thinks corruption is a bad thing and wishes Britain to set a global example of virtue. He is worried that his capital city, London, might become “a safe haven for corrupt money from around the world,” indeed for “plundered and laundered cash.” According to Transparency International, a tenth of the properties in Westminster alo...

George Osborne will spend more than ever. Don’t be fooled by his ‘40% cuts’ | Simon Jenkins

The chancellor is not cutting the cost of the public sector – he just wants a different one. But even then, expect costs to balloon

George Osborne loves to play the heebie-jeebie who pops up at parties and shouts “Boo!”. But Tuesday’s request for a “40% cut” in government spending looks like cruelty to children. No one believes it will happen. In no year of Osborne’s chancellorship has he actually cut public spending – and only in 2013 was it cut in real terms. Nor did his latest budget aim to...