Simon Jenkins's Blog, page 97

For Greece, the worst catastrophe now would be to stay in the eurozone | Simon Jenkins

A Grexit, with a managed default and devaluation to kickstart recovery, is the only deal that should be on the table

There must be Grexit this weekend. It is light at the end of the tunnel, the best possible outcome from Greece’s agony and, in truth, the only one. The admission of Greece into the eurozone in 2001, tying its economy to that of Germany (and its reckless bankers), was a disaster waiting to happen. The error was so great that even this tiny economy – just 1.3% of the EU’s – has co...

The Garrick Club’s vote to keep women out is sad rather than sexist | Simon Jenkins

With an average age of around 70, the lovely old Covent Garden building is more a daycare centre than a club. Does it matter that its members want a male-only enclave?

Who gives a damn about London’s private and male-only Garrick Club? The answer is that its members do, which is their (and incidentally my) business. So do some women, who are the only group specifically barred from membership. They protest at what is an “affinity” society, mostly of actors, writers, lawyers and media types, exc...

This Heathrow report got Cameron off the hook. But it won’t be the last word | Simon Jenkins

Howard Davies thinks a trickle-down effect from the airport will benefit the whole country. This clearly cannot be

Government inquiries are Britain’s bullfights. They are expensive, ritualised, interminable and the cause of lavish corporate expenditure. They all have the same ending: a man in a suit pirouetting over a pile of bleeding meat.

The bleeding meat of Wednesday’s Davies report is London’s environment, apparently in need of yet more air, noise and traffic pollution at levels that shoul...

Why do we keep giving terrorists exactly what they want? | Simon Jenkins

The fear-fuelled reaction to the Tunisia attacks by the UK government and media alike glamorises the crimes and only encourages others to emulate them

First question, what do terrorists want? Answer, they want massive publicity for their every outrage, followed by politicians and others generating hysteria, fear and repression. The UK response to the Tunisian massacre from David Cameron, his government and the media has granted that wish. The second question is whether granting that wish might...

HS2 has just claimed its first victim: the rail upgrades we so badly need | Simon Jenkins

As Network Rail’s investment plan grinds to a halt, HS2 is more of a wild extravagance than ever. Put it on ice and the money where it is actually needed

The truth is out. When the HS2 railway line was confirmed by the last government, the transport secretary Patrick McLoughlin promised it would have no impact on existing rail investment. Yesterday that promise lay in ruins. Network Rail’s much-vaunted £38.5bn rail investment plan – in reality it is the government’s – has been put on hol...

Festivals, flights and fulfilment: welcome to the post-digital world

However well-connected it makes us, cyberspace is lonely. That’s why, more and more, we are looking for live experiences

Meeting this week in the south of France is the giant Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity. It is a fancy title for the marketing world’s Mad Men on sea. Rumour has it that half the world’s annual ad revenue is negotiated on its yachts and in its hotels and bars. It thus joins the Cannes film festival, the Frankfurt book fair, cancer research in Chicago and arms fairs everywh...

Simon Jenkins on Chris Woodhead: ‘He climbed an argument as he climbed a mountain, because it was there’

Chris Woodhead was a fanatical mountaineer. When tiring of the pressure of educational politics, he and his wife, Christine, moved to a cottage in Wales, on the near inaccessible slopes of his beloved Cnicht, in Snowdonia. He dreamed of climbing the days away. Yet within a year of arriving, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease. I went with him on one of his last walks up the mountain, and recall him remarking that every climber wants to die on a mountain. I said I would always help him...

Here’s how to save 10,000 lives – let GPs order cancer tests | Simon Jenkins

The health regulator, Nice, is right – as my experience shows, early diagnosis is essential. But it’s being prevented by the NHS’s own testing regime

I have a plan to save 10,000 lives a year, but no one will listen. That is the number of the shocking excess of cancer deaths in the UK over the European average. The excess is mostly attributable to late diagnosis, or so the health regulator, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (Nice), has announced. The reason for late diagnos...

Refugees: this is the human tide the west doesn’t want | Simon Jenkins

The global crisis engendered by people fleeing war seems unstoppable. But open borders carry an unacceptable political price for national governments

Who now cries, “Give me your tired, your poor, / Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, / The wretched refuse of your teeming shore”? We stand appalled as boatloads of refugees wash up on the beaches of the northern Mediterranean. Men, women and children scramble up rocks and plead: “Is this Europe?” We arrest the traffickers, yet aid thei...

Appointing a ‘low-level disruption’ school tsar is stupid government | Simon Jenkins

Education secretary Nicky Morgan’s meddling has reached ludicrous levels with the creation of a new Whitehall overlord tasked with tackling slightly bad behaviour

All ministers go mad, but some go mad faster than others. A sure sign is a craving to appoint “tsars”.

Related: School behaviour tsar appointed to tackle classroom disruption

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