Simon Jenkins

Biography

Sir Simon Jenkins is an editor, author and journalist. He was born in 1943 and educated at Mill Hill School and St John's College, Oxford. He worked for Country Life magazine, the Times Educational Supplement and the Evening Standard, before becoming editor of the Sunday Times' Insight page and then editor the Evening Standard (1976 – 1978). He was political editor of The Economist from 1979 – 1986 and editor of The Times from 1990 – 1992.

He was board member of British Rail (1979 – 1990), London Transport (1984 – 1986), and deputy chairman of English Heritage (1985 – 1990). He was a member of the Millennium Commission (1994 – 2000) – the body behind the controversial Millennium Dome – and chairman of the Independent Commission on Local Democracy (1994 – 1995). He is currently a member of the Buildings Books Trust, and a trustee of the Somerset House Trust and the Architecture Foundation. [1]

He was Journalist of the Year in 1988 and Columnist of the Year in 1993. He was knighted in the New Year 2004 honours.

He now writes for the Evening Standard and The Guardian.

Jenkins has shares in Abbey National, Emap and Newscorp.

Views on nuclear

Jenkins is a trenchant critic of wind power and vocal advocate of nuclear. [2]

On 23 November 2005, for example, he wrote in The Guardian: “Tony Blair seems to be on the brink of making a really good decision… the prime minister intends to invest in nuclear power as part of Britain's future energy mix. Praise be… His target is that Britain must make a 20% emissions cut by 2010. There is no way of coming close to such a cut except by recourse to nuclear power. Therefore meeting the target means building new nuclear stations immediately.�

Deploying an argument strikingly similar to that made by the nuclear industry’s Brian Wilson in The Observer a few days later, Jenkins continued: “For Blair to get a new nuclear programme under way before he departs need not involve the delays beloved of his fellow planning lawyers. If John Prescott can give himself permission to build executive houses in green belts, turbines in the Cotswolds and 50-storey flats opposite parliament, Blair can permit a new power station on the site of an old one. Nor is it sensible to attribute to the next generation of power plants the costs, and the risks, of earlier ones. To shout Chernobyl at any nuclear project is like pitting the dangers of Stephenson's Rocket against a TGV.� [3] [4]

He has urged Blair to build more nuclear power stations – and dismissed wind turbines as “gimmicks�. [5]

He has also declared: “Turbine parks are truly massive, requiring to be serviced by networks of new roads, quarries, pylons and substations across virgin moorland. The saving in greenhouse gas is negligible — less in a year than is exhaled by one transatlantic jet. The subsidies would be infinitely better spent cleaning coal and gas stations, insulating houses and investing in nuclear power.� [6]

Jenkins appeared at an anti-wind power event in Edinburgh on 23 July 2005. Billed as Scotland’s first ever ‘neutral debate’ on windfarms, the ‘National Wind Farm Debate’, was organized by the millionaire financier and wind-farm opponent Angus Macdonald. Pro-wind speakers pulled out at the last minute, citing vetting of the audience. A hastily-written covering note in the press pack stated that there had been no vetting, and rubbished Scottish Renewables, one of the companies that had withdrawn from the event.

Jenkins joined Sir Martin Holdgate, Ian Fells and lawyer John Campbell on the panel. During the debate he stated that he opposes turbines because they are “completely devastating� parts of the countryside. He said: “everyone who is in favour of them [turbines] has money in them�. He advocates nuclear in place of this “totally crazy innovation�. Summing up, he said “I start from a position of mild scepticism about global warming.�

His public support for nuclear dates back at least five years – in March 2001, he wrote in The Times: “I remain an enthusiast for nuclear power, which does little atmospheric damage and is highly efficient.� [Simon Jenkins, ‘How green are our turbine valleys?’, ‘‘The Times’’, 7 March 2001]

Like many other proponents of nuclear power, he has also argued that it is an essentially green technology – stating, for instance: “If you hate carbon you must love nuclear.� [Simon Jenkins, ‘The ill wind blowing through energy policy’, ‘‘The Times’’, 15 February 2002]