simonjenkins

Britain’s health is a national scandal, not just because of the state of the NHS, but because the government refuses to take action on our diets

In April 1994, the CEOs of the US’s seven biggest tobacco companies swore on oath before a Senate committee that nicotine was “not addictive”. At the time it was estimated that 3,000 American children were being induced by said companies to start smoking every day.

Last Monday, the BBC’s Panorama programme came close to repeating that scene with Britain’s food manufacturers. The products at issue are ultra-processed foods (UPF). Their makers’ denial of the harm these products may cause is as adamant as those tobacco execs’ once was, and the consequences could be equally lethal.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Blocking the North of Tyne mayor from standing for Labour again shows how deep the party’s centralism runs

It’s what they do, not what they say. All opposition leaders are localists until it matters. Keir Starmer said in January he wanted to “take back control” for local communities. The Labour leader wants them to have more say over jobs, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare and finance. He wants to liberate what is now recognised as the most centralised state in Europe. So why, now, has the Labour leader decided that the people of the North of Tyne area will not be permitted to reselect their current mayor, Jamie Driscoll, to stand for Labour at the next election? Why did he agree in March that his predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, should not be reselected as MP for Islington North?

Whatever the perceived misdeeds of these two politicians, surely these are matters for their respective communities to decide on. Come to that, I notice in the past few weeks that, despite his devolution speech, Starmer wants no devolution of power over council tax rises, local housing decisions or the siting of wind turbines, among other things. Nor will he tolerate any nonsense from Scottish people about “taking back control” of Scotland. He may want to move on “from slogans to solutions”, but whose solutions?

With spiralling deficits and little prospect of government support, higher education’s only long-term hope lies in radical change

Universities are becoming primary victims of the chaos enveloping Britain’s public sector. News reported in the Guardian has vice-chancellors pleading for a “new model” of government funding. This follows reports that one-third of England’s universities are trading at a deficit. Since almost one-fifth of UK students in higher education now come from abroad – 125,000 of them from China – there is near panic at the Home Office’s determination to slash student immigration.

Some universities, including Manchester, Glasgow, Sheffield, UCL and Imperial, rely on Chinese students alone for between a quarter and a third of their income. This means that any Beijing sanction on Britain – such as for mentioning the Uyghurs too often – could turn off this tap at source. Chinese numbers are already falling, by 4% last year, and are compensated only by soaring numbers for Indians, Nigerians, south-east Asians and 135,000 dependents. This last figure the Home Office is eager to cut.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Sweden’s pandemic postmortem is done and dusted, yet ours seems headed for the courts before it has even begun

British politics has become a medieval battlefield across which the victors wander, seeking the twitching remains of Boris Johnson to harass and hack. The latest spat is over how much to reveal of his Downing Street behaviour during Covid. Lady Hallett, chair of the Covid inquiry, wants the unredacted WhatsApp messages between Johnson and 40 senior colleagues, along with unredacted diaries and 24 notebooks.

Hallett thinks all material is potentially relevant for investigating, say, “the degree of attention given to the emergence of Covid-19 in early 2020 by the then prime minister”. The Cabinet Office strongly disagrees, citing privacy and disputing the relevance of much of the material. The eager Liberal Democrats claim that being kept in the dark is “yet another insult to bereaved families waiting for justice”.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

One of the great creations of postwar Britain is under threat from the housing crisis – it doesn’t have to be this way

Is the green belt doomed? One of the great creations of postwar British planning – the concept of a national park within reach of every city-dweller – is fast losing friends. Under siege from centralist housing targets, argued between Tories and their lobbyists, it has now been undermined by Labour’s Keir Starmer. He wants to leave decisions on building in London’s green belt to local councils. Leaving councillors to decide on the nod if a particular meadow should be worth £1,000 or £1m is not a good idea.

Green belts were invented to protect adjacent countryside from the sprawl of interwar suburbs, after the ambitions of Octavia Hill and other champions of public health. They were the envy of Europe. They embodied the idea of the role of nature in the civilised city half a century before the green revolution. As a result, they cover about 12% of England, and 22% of Greater London, of which half is open access.

There are many reasons the home secretary may not be right for the job, but this inflated drama isn’t one of them

Trivial is the default mode of British politics. Whether or not the home secretary did ask civil servants and an aide to help her get out of a group speed-awareness course, and if she did, whether she was right to do so, is not the most urgent issue of the day. Yet, as MPs this week gathered round the Westminster village pump, it pushed immigration, the NHS, Ukraine and the G7 off the agenda.

Suella Braverman had few qualifications for high office and even fewer to handle Britain’s vexed immigration challenge. Her workload would indeed be a fit topic of discussion. But she has also, like the archbishop of Canterbury, fallen foul of Britain’s driving speed limits. Offenders are offered a choice between a fine and licence points or a speed awareness course, which they aren’t allowed to attend again in three years. It is alleged that Braverman asked if she might do the awareness course one-on-one instead of in a group. This is apparently a facility offered to some people.

As rebel rightwing Tories jockeyed for position this week, they tore up any remaining hopes of a Conservative election victory

I once pondered a career in politics but an elder statesman strongly advised me against it. I asked why. Because, he said, you are too interested in politics. Stick to journalism. A political career was not about politics, but about loyalty.

Never a truer word was spoken. As the tottering frame of Britain’s Tory party heads for collapse at the end of this parliament, it is clearly suffering death throes. Loyalty, long that party’s “secret weapon”, has deserted it. With an awesome electoral ordeal ahead, its leader Rishi Sunak had to watch colleagues and backbenchers alike attend a rally of an ultra-conservative US sect to discuss what Tories really believe, 13 years after they have supposedly been practising it.

The western response has been blighted by stupidity. Sanctions hurt trade and have little effect on despotic leaders

Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s visit to London yesterday on his surprise tour of European capitals suggests a last throw of the dice in his bid to drive the Russians from his country. He has justice on his side and is desperate for logistical support. He has shown he can use it well and deserves to get it.

As he did in his meeting with Emmanuel Macron on Sunday, he is also requesting additional economic sanctions on Russia. These are a different matter. Sanctions on Russia have failed utterly in their declared objective of deterring Vladimir Putin’s aggression. They failed to curb his initial incursions after 2014 and failed to restrain his barbaric conduct of the present war. They have not destroyed his economy or induced his cronies, let alone his people, to rise up against him. They may have curbed his trade with some current and former partners, but hardly by much. He can afford to play long.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Railways, water companies and the NHS are in crisis – we need bold new policies to fix them, not Keir Starmer’s timid dithering

What sort of Labour is Keir Starmer’s government now promising? Before previous elections, the party’s promise has been the same. It is the expectation of a change for the better, whether or not fulfilled.

What that means – perhaps higher taxes and a bigger state – emerges in the months leading up to voting day. That is when policy is still fluid, lobbyists insistent and manifesto pledges up for grabs. To political radicals these are rare moments of hope.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

From climate activists to arts bodies, every interest group will be crying out for the support of our outspoken monarch

So much for the magic, now for business. The coronation weekend reasserted Britain not as a modest, symbolic, “bicycling” monarchy of the sort adopted by many of Europe’s other hereditary kingdoms. Its royal family remains spectacular, drenched in history, religion, ritual and extravagance, an all-bells-and-whistles celebrity institution. Heredity is indefensible as a basis for high office, but it can survive if legitimised by consent. A king should indeed enjoy popular support, or he is nothing. But the question remains: is this popularity more safely guaranteed by unobtrusive moderation or by great congregations of soldiers, golden coaches, screaming jets, pop stars, bishops and God?

In his study of monarchy, the constitutionalist Vernon Bogdanor classified Britain as a “magic monarchy”. It respected the writer Walter Bagehot’s concept of a “mystical and theatrical” institution, kept wholly distinct from the grimmer realities of democratic government. That was the past weekend in spades. I lost count of the references to God, but there was no mention of parliament or democracy. Not even China’s Xi Jinping or Russia’s Vladimir Putin would have dared summon millions to watch them unclothe and disappear into a cubicle to commune with the almighty as the central legitimating act of their office. Is Britain completely mad?

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Society is making strange decisions. Some in high office lose jobs and deserve to, but we also ignore others whose sins are egregious

What have the now former chair of the BBC, the Labour veteran Diane Abbott and the ousted chancellor Nadhim Zahawi all got in common? Indeed, what do they share with Boris Johnson, Dominic Raab and Matt Hancock?

The answer is that they have all been accused of things that so upset people as to cause them to lose or risk losing their jobs. Failing to disclose having facilitated a loan, enjoying an unwise liaison, holding a contentious opinion: the misbehaviour in question varies, but all was deemed sufficiently significant to risk ruining their reputations or future careers – or at least for their organisations to be under pressure to see them depart to appease its critics.

As universities wind down teaching for yet another round of exams, more and more prospective graduates are asking: why bother?

This week begins one of the worst deals offered by any British professional institution. Almost all universities are about to stop teaching students and subject them to pointless exams, mocks and quantification, before passing or failing them, then packing up and reassembling some months later in September. For an average price of tens of thousands of pounds a head (except in Scotland), most students will get virtually no teaching for a good proportion of their course. From any other service – medicine, law, accountancy – this would be regarded as a scam.

The tradition of scholars teaching academic subjects part-time while doubling as researchers is a relic of medieval monasticism. Oxbridge operates for just 24 weeks a year while many other universities operate two semesters. Staff and buildings may be otherwise employed, but students will sit idle, doing odd jobs or studying on their own. No one dares challenge this system. Whitehall inspectors never declare universities “failing” or “inadequate” as they do schools.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnnist

Instead of caving in to the building lobby, he is trying to return power to the people about the future of their communities

As the present Tory administration staggers on, one minister at least is showing some terminal creativity. The levelling up, housing and communities secretary, Michael Gove, is galvanising housing policy, sort of. This year, he has at last abandoned the absurdity that there is a national housing need of a fixed number of houses a year.

Councils in England have been told they no longer need to deliver a precise target of new buildings laid down in Whitehall irrespective of sound planning or local opinion. He has also vetoed an ugly suburban development in Kent, has introduced plans that would allow local councils to limit Airbnb and holiday homes, and is trying to make manufacturing companies pay for recladding tower blocks post-Grenfell.

The obsession with a subject most people don’t need to study until they are 18 is typical of a system that fails to equip pupils for modern life

Rishi Sunak is clearly gripped by maths. Today’s attack on what he sees as Britain’s “anti-maths mindset” is his second this year. The prime minister wants to embarrass all innumerates and make not being good at maths socially unacceptable. Lack of maths, he says, is costing the country “tens of billions a year”. So he wants students in England to study maths in some form until they are 18, with a review forthcoming.

Ever since Margaret Thatcher, certain politicians have been obsessed by maths – and for one reason. Its results are quantifiable, measurable and susceptible to central control. Yet two of the most successful countries in the supposed endgame of maths – the science industries – are the US and Britain, and they rank 17th and 38th in the Pisa international rankings for maths. In other words, for the minority of pupils whose careers require maths – and who keep Britain in the top leagues for Nobel prizes – the nation’s maths seems good enough. It is fine too for those for whom the subject is both fascinating and even beautiful, which includes me.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

This article was amended on 19 April 2023. An earlier photograph caption said that Einstein was writing a density formula for the Milky Way. However, the image shows the equation for a vanishing Ricci curvature tensor, a statement that roughly asks, “is spacetime flat?”.

Despite the troubles facing the SNP, a revolution would be needed to remove it from power. Its core demand still stirs so many hearts

There is palpable glee in Westminster at the current predicament of the Scottish National party – with Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, the party’s former chief executive, arrested last week, but released without charge pending further inquiries, as part of an investigation into SNP finances. But the unionist joy is misplaced.

Even without a resolution, and amid the party’s denial of any wrongdoing, the assumption is that independence is the cult of a political clique that has finally been rumbled.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

Lockdowns accelerated an existing trend. We need to reconnect the use of these buildings to the communities around them

For Christian worship in England, the Covid-19 lockdowns were a disaster. All churches were forced to close by the government during the first and second lockdowns. Where office working and high-street shopping led, Christianity followed. It stayed at home. Recently published research suggests that fully a quarter of Anglican churches are no longer holding weekly services. Five, 10, even 20 parish churches are being grouped under one hard-pressed vicar, with worshippers racing round to find which one is open.

Hopes that attendance would recover in 2022 have proved vain, though online worship has seen a boost. A preliminary survey of five representative dioceses suggests weekly attendance may have fallen during lockdowns by more than 20%. It is even possible that the final year’s figure may be below half a million. This follows a 15-20% fall in the decade from 2009. According to a 2022 survey just six% of adults in the UK are practising Christians. A 2005 study found there were more mosque-going British Muslims, about 930,000, than regular worshippers in the Church of England. Average attendance for Church of England Sunday services in 2021 was 509,000. The significance of this for the king’s ecclesiastical coronation next month grows ever more alarming. A secular ceremony of some sort would surely be more suitable.

Many voters back the ex-president despite – or perhaps because of – his alleged crimes. A trial might only entrench that support

The best reason for arraigning Donald Trump in New York this week is that he is guilty. It is possible that the jury might agree and he might go quietly to jail, thus being unable to return to the White House were he to be elected. That is a good reason, but it does not make it a wise one.

American justice is not political but it can be highly politicised. We won’t know until Tuesday afternoon what exactly Trump has been indicted on, but many assume he will face charges of falsely concealing “hush money” paid to the former adult film actor Stormy Daniels. The case was brought by an elected Democratic district attorney, Alvin Bragg. It comes more than six years after the alleged offence occurred, and at the start of Trump’s campaign for the 2024 Republican nomination for president. At the very least, this does not look coincidental.

It was a scourge in the 90s and 00s. Now, though, what we need is new privacy laws to regulate the excesses of social media

Never did a stranger Magnificent Seven ride into town. It includes a royal prince, an ageing pop star, two B-movie film stars and a former Lib Dem MP. All were chosen as wounded heroes by the champions of privacy against the mighty Daily Mail. Heaven knows what this grievance-fest is costing but someone can afford it.

We all know tabloid newspapers in the 1990s and 2000s could behave outrageously, notably in their coverage of celebrity. Intrusive photography and phone hacking were rife. Technology was always ahead of policing. Intrusion was called the “price of celebrity” and only the lucky escaped paying it. No one familiar with the press at the time would be surprised at the charges now levied against Associated Newspapers, which owns the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. These include the commissioning of external investigators to tap landlines and intercept voicemails, and the blagging of medical records. The publisher strongly denies the allegations.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

The UK’s obsession with jail time is counterproductive and cruel. There are better ways to deal with wrongdoing

Auriol Grey, who has cerebral palsy and lives in specially adapted accommodation, was walking along a footpath in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, and was infuriated to see a bicycle coming towards her. She waved her arm at it, making the 77-year-old rider swerve, lose her balance and fall into the road, where she was hit by a passing car and died. An act of what might be called antisocial behaviour was followed by a terrible accident. Grey is now serving three years in prison for manslaughter.

Britain’s judicial system is obsessed with prison to a degree that is unlike any other country in western Europe. The number of prisoners has roughly doubled since the 1990s. Prison conditions are so bad that a Dutch court refused to extradite a convict to Britain on grounds of its “inhumane” jails.

Simon Jenkins is a Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

A health and cost of living crisis is causing real problems that must be addressed. Democracy cannot be hamstrung any longer

Nothing in Boris Johnson’s post-Downing Street antics has been more cynical than his dodging from the privileges committee hearing on Wednesday to vote against Rishi Sunak’s Windsor framework. That reform was a hard-won attempt to rescue and reorder Johnson’s own hard-Brexit shambles. The least he could do was say thank you and shut up.

Fleeing to Northern Ireland’s extremist wilderness has long appealed to Britain’s political rejects. It offered a bunker to FE Smith and Enoch Powell. If Uxbridge now drops Johnson as its MP, Antrim will doubtless make him an offer, from whose cliffs he can rant and conspire against colleagues to his heart’s content. But the damage done by Brexit to the vexed politics of Northern Ireland does not end there. As its trade protocol sinks below the horizon, Churchill’s “dreary steeples of Fermanagh and Tyrone” are emerging once more in its place.