|
Simon JenkinsThe Guardian |
Recently, John Healey, the relatively new defence secretary, made a personal confession. He told how his son’s current military service “plays on...
The Korean chief executive of Jeju Air, Kim E-bae, could not have been more direct. After the crash of one of the airline’s planes he went straight...
Every day in Britain the police are failing to arrest about 670 shoplifters. Down the road, your median wait in A&E is three hours. Meanwhile the...
Every parent of a school-age child should watch Swiped, the Channel 4 documentary on smartphones shown last week. It was devastating. It told of an...
All proper democracies have two tiers, central and local. They are equally vital, but in Britain the second tier is all but dead. Local democracy...
The hypocrisy is breathtaking. Yes, any father might do the same for a son. Yes, the boy is reformed, forgiven, on the mend. Only nasty people are...
I recently attended memorial services for two friends. Both died after long illnesses, and the services were naturally sad. But the subsequent...
This is how big wars start, when small ones go wrong. Nato politicians are deliberately playing with fire along the Ukrainian frontier, as UK-made...
You can damn oil companies, abuse cars, insult nimbys, kill cows, befoul art galleries. But you must never, ever criticise the worst offender of...
First the good news. The US is talking to Russia. Then the bad. Vladimir Putin has been phoned not by the current US president, but by a known...
Yes, we all know it looks terrible. We have heard what Donald Trump has promised. But could there be silver linings to these ominous clouds? The...
The face said it all. As Rachel Reeves listed the infrastructure projects being funded by her first budget, she could not even say how much the...
Is it wise for Britons to heap abuse on Donald Trump? At present he is the marginal favourite to win next week’s US presidential election –...
The Church of England is in a state of “panic and fear”, of “deep anxiety”, and should stop being obsessed with numbers and face the reality...
We can all sympathise with Chris Hoy for his terminal cancer, and admire the manner in which he revealed it. Dignity so rarely goes with celebrity....
Does Labour believe in beauty? The energy secretary, Ed Miliband, celebrated his arrival in office this summer by permitting three of the largest...
Nothing reveals Britain’s aversion to change quite like its failure to reform the House of Lords. Since the turn of the 21st century, almost...
It is the most sickening league table on Earth. Which of the world’s three current major wars has resulted in the most deaths? On the latest...
The British empire still sends governments mad. Labour’s Foreign Office minister in charge of its lasting shreds, Stephen Doughty, has granted...
Why is William Hague not standing as Tory leader rather than mere chancellor of Oxford? He is hale and hearty at 63. Is David Cameron also over the...
What can a German do but a Briton cannot? What can a New Yorker, a Chicagoan and a San Franciscan do, but a Londoner cannot? What can Canadians,...
What’s not to like about working from home? No commuting. More flexibility. Wear jeans. The boss can’t pester you. It’s a social revolution and...
The most remarkable feature of the Sue Gray saga is not how much the Downing Street chief of staff earns, but how little Britain’s prime minister...
The greatest disaster to emerge from the war in Ukraine would be a collapsed Nato. For the prime minister, Keir Starmer, to be signalling confusion...
Forget the NHS for a minute – and look to Britain’s universities, another institution in urgent need of fixing. A number are on the brink of...
Should the pensioners’ winter fuel allowance be cut? For most people it’s a simple question, though most people’s opinion is of no account. For...
What is justice for Grenfell? After seven years of public inquiry we have a 1,700-page report and a cost of more than £200m. We have had...
What can Keir Starmer learn from Tony Blair? He hit the ground running in handling last month’s rightwing riots over immigration. He rolled the...
Politics never ends. Today the selection begins of the leader of the opposition and thus possibly the next British prime minister. The pollsters’...
Boring. That was the universal response to Wednesday’s first prime minister’s questions of the new parliament. Where was the screaming,...
Kamala Harris is now the frontrunner to be the Democratic party’s candidate for the most powerful job in the world. She appears sorely...
When Keir Starmer entered Downing Street, a few foreign events were arranged to glamorise his arrival. He visited a Nato summit and promised to...