Simon Kelner

Chief Executive of @sevendialspr. Columnist in @theipaper. Former editor of The Independent. All things Manchester City. And @swinton_lions

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Articles

Our dying pub industry needs a hero - step forward Jeremy Clarkson

3 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

In the new series of Clarkson’s Farm, we see the eponymous hero diversify his interests from rearing pigs, planting crops and test-driving his latest Lamborghini tractor to the pursuit of buying a local pub in which he can sell his own farmed produce, and that from neighbouring farms. It’s a noble cause, even though my suspicion is that Jeremy had another, equally ambitious purpose.
A good night's sleep is no sackable offence

3 weeks ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

I have a friend who, some time ago, instructed me to switch my phone on to silent when I went to bed. “But what if there is an emergency that needs my attention?” I protested (at the time, I had a job that was prone to out-of-hours crises).
I don't care if I look like an old fart - young people need to know this one thing

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

Could I ever truly fall in love with someone who didn’t use correct punctuation? With someone who, for instance, would write “it’s” when they really mean “its”, even in a hurried text message? Or who would be incapable of writing a sentence that didn’t end in an exclamation mark? Or who might run several thoughts into one, avoiding punctuation altogether?
Gary Lineker has gone from national treasure to agent provocateur

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

In a football career that spanned 16 years, 542 senior games, two continents and two World Cups, Gary Lineker never received so much as a yellow card. Yet as he hangs up his boots, so to speak, on his nearly30-year association with the BBC, his persona is less that of a national treasure, more of an agent provocateur; someone who seems to attract trouble, if not exactly court it.
Sorry, Gary, but this time I can’t defend the indefensible

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

In an interview last month, Gary Lineker was asked whether it was within his remit, as someone bound by BBC rules on impartiality, to offer his view on Middle East politics. He gave a plausible response. “I’m sorry. It’s more important than the BBC,” he said. “What’s going on there [Gaza] is the mass murder of thousands of children – probably something that we should have a little opinion on.”On many occasions, I’ve defended Lineker’s right to speak out on matters beyond football.
I don’t care who comes to the Cotswolds - as long as property prices keep going up

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

I live in a small village in West Oxfordshire. It is technically on the edge of the Cotswolds, but that would be a distinction which no self-respecting estate agent would allow. The Cotswolds is a designated area of outstanding natural beauty which occupies some 800 square miles of landscape across five counties, so who’s going to quibble if our village, a short distance from the axis of Chipping Norton, is included in its general purview? Not me, certainly.
King Charles has an obligation to forgive Prince Harry

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

Dear DeirdreI no longer speak to my 40-year-old son. He married an American woman, an actress, in 2018, and ever since then, relations have been difficult, up to the point that we don’t see them, or my two grandchildren, any more. They moved to California, which made things worse, as I always saw a role for him in the family business.
David Beckham’s showy 50th birthday celebrations betray the values he espouses

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

We now live in a world in which David Beckham is 50 years old. Hard to reconcile, I know, that the young man we can still clearly see in our mind’s eye precisely lobbing the ball into Wimbledon’s net from the halfway line, or shaven-headed, curling in a magnificent last-minute free kick against Greece to get England into the 2002 World Cup finals, is now at an age when he should get regular screening for bowel cancer. It would be hard to miss the fact that he has just passed this landmark.
Second homes are a privilege, not a right - their council tax should be doubled

1 month ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

Last week I went on a golf trip with some friends to the East of Scotland. It was a magnificent few days in some of the most beautiful scenery on God’s Earth: the gorse was in dazzling yellow bloom, newly born calves tottered unsteadily in the fields, and, remarkably, the sun shone ceaselessly. We were very good tourists, contributing in no small amount to the local economy, but the peaceful landscape we encountered, and the hospitality we experienced, do not reflect the full story.
Jewish people are turning away from Israel - don't be surprised

2 months ago | inews.co.uk | Simon Kelner

In Philip Roth’s 1969 break-out novel, Portnoy’s Complaint, the eponymous protagonist, Alexander Portnoy, makes the observation that he only realised the English language could be used for something other than arguing when he spent Thanksgiving with his non-Jewish girlfriend’s family.