Two much anticipated events have played themselves out in Britain over the past week. The Queen’s platinum jubilee saw pomp, circumstance and several singalong moments give Britain a sense of unity. Tim Adams watched the military displays, the service of thanksgiving at St Paul’s cathedral and joined the throngs on the Mall with their eyes fixed on Buckingham Palace, transformed into a giant projector screen. But behind the celebrations was discussion of how the monarchy will change when this 70-year reign comes to an inevitable end. A short distance away, the plotting of disenchanted Conservative MPs reached a denouement as news came that enough of their number had sent letters to prompt a vote on Boris Johnson’s leadership. The cloud over his head, like the unsettled bank holiday weather, in the end didn’t cause a sudden political downpour but, wonder Aubrey Allegretti and Heather Stewart from our Westminster reporting team, is King Boris, with 148 of his MPs in open revolt, now fatally wounded?
The war in Ukraine has passed the 100-day mark with Russian forces back on the offensive in Donbas. Correspondent Luke Harding was in Slavyansk where he met the deputy mayor and a veteran fighter who are determined to resist Putin’s plans to subsume eastern Ukraine into his messianic plans for a Greater Russia. In culture, art critic Charlotte Mullins reports on how looting the Scythian treasures of Ukraine are one of Moscow’s blatant war aims.
This week’s big feature is an extract from Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland’s new book, The Escape Artist. Freedland writes thrillers under the pen name Sam Bourne but this non-fiction account of how Walter Rosenberg undertook an almost impossible mission to bring the world testimony of Nazi genocide from inside Auschwitz concentration camp is filled with jeopardy and tension as it tells how the young Czechoslovakian planned his breakout.
John Waters happily wears his crown as the king of filth, or could it be the pope of trash? In our main Culture interview he explains how the talking penis that features in his debut novel could be the figure to bring camp back to the realms of subversion the cult film-maker has championed throughout his career.
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