Warm sun shone on London this week, bringing that unmistakable air of natural renewal. Yet there’s an aura of springtime uncertainty: as I write there is exactly a month to go before the UK general election, on 7 May, the outcome of which the most seasoned onlookers are finding hard to call. Another coalition of sorts seems certain; with either Labour or the Conservatives the dominant partner, the main intrigue to be resolved, effectively, is who will end up getting into bed with whom.
After years of decisive Labour or Tory majorities, coalition politics is a concept we Brits are still adjusting to. Last week the seven main party leaders who could conceivably be involved in a new UK government set out their stalls in a frankly quite head-spinning TV debate. So on our UK pages, we asked a former chief adviser to the Blair government to run an apolitical rule over all the main policy pledges and discuss how deliverable they really are. His observations are interesting, to say the least!
Our cover this week catches up with Aung San Suu Kyi, a politician hoping to effect much more profound change when Burma holds its first free elections later this year. She warns that while the democratic outlook for Burma may appear rosy, the country’s military generals may still have plenty to say about the outcome.
The fragility of democratic rights is highlighted in Burma’s neighbour, Thailand, where military ruler Prayuth Chan-ocha has stealthily awarded himself sweeping powers, and in Uzbekistan, where Islam Karimov’s highly questionable re-election for a fourth term highlights his iron grip on the country.
Elsewhere, we look at what the tentative Iranian framework nuclear agreement signals for the Middle East. From Iraq, Martin Chulov reports on how the fightback against Islamic State is further muddying the waters between the country’s Sunni and Shia Muslims. In Brazil, meanwhile, an excommunicated sect of ultra-orthodox Roman Catholics is challenging Pope Francis’s leadership of the church.
Looking to Asia, our sister paper Le Monde casts a business-critical eye over Wuhan’s quest to be the Motor City of China.
The Weekly Review considers the nature of free will and the controversial suggestion that more of our choices are determined by genetics than we realise. As exuberant male facial hair returns to fashion, we consider whether it’s weird to grow a beard. And from Nevada, we hear about the transformative powers on prison inmates of working with wild horses.
Books offers a chilling double perspective on the manipulation of big data in the digital world, both by large corporations and by cyber-criminals, and for slightly more pastoral balance there’s a look at the blooming world of nature writing.
In Culture the actor Ben Kingsley gives a rather enigmatic interview that leaves Zoe Williams with a distinct feeling that she’s heard it all before. And from Norway, via the Washington Post, the curious concept of Slow TV: coming soon (but perhaps not that soon) to a television set near you.
Notes & Queries considers whether war is a genetic impulse. Good to meet you hears from a reader in Germany for whom the Weekly has been a companion through three family generations.
One of the reads I found most thought-provoking in this week’s edition was the What I’m really thinking contribution from a workaholic. “Going home isn’t a chance to unwind,” they write. “I’m just killing time until I can get back at it.” We all take different routes to balancing our lives, but for what it’s worth I find the chance to switch off and reflect, when I’m lucky enough to get it, is rarely time wasted.
In a way, taking stock is what the Guardian Weekly is all about. Thanks for reading (click here if you’d like to share your thoughts) and if you have been marking a holiday this week, we hope it has been a peaceful one.
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