It has been a startling week or so in the UK. In normal circumstances, a UN envoy castigating the British government for its “punitive, mean-spirited and callous” austerity measures would rightly dominate the news agenda. But British politics doesn’t do “normal” any more. Brexit dominates the UK news agenda like no other subject, but last week was pretty special even by the new, shambolic, standard. As soon as Theresa May announced she had finalised a deal with the EU, she was attacked from the right and the left. The fallout for the prime minister was almost fatal. Many in May’s party won’t back her deal in parliament. Nor will her Northern Irish allies, the DUP. Her own Brexit minister resigned over the matter and the Conservative party’s rabid anti-EU wing has begun a so-far unsuccessful leadership challenge. So is there any way she can get an agreement through parliament? In this week’s big story, we go behind the scenes of a wild week – before looking at six possible scenarios for May’s deal. Then, Andrew Anthony takes the temperature in the Tory heartland.
Staying in Britain, we also look at UN special rapporteur Philip Alston’s devastating report on the Tory government’s treatment of Britain’s poor. It would make disturbing reading for the people who govern Britain if they were not otherwise engaged. In this week’s opinion pages, Aditya Chakrabortty laments the fact that it took a UN lawyer to highlight the UK’s “decade of shame”.
Elsewhere, Emma Graham-Harrison meets Grace Meng, the wife of missing Interpol chief Meng Hongwei, who has been detained in his native China since October. Speaking from France, where she is living under police protection, Meng explains why she is standing up to the authorities who have taken her husband.
In more cheering news – as her already bestselling memoir Becoming is released – we are granted an audience with Michelle Obama. The former first lady takes questions from fans, including pop stars Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus, lawyers, politicians and a class of 10-year-old kids.
Finally, from our Long Reads team, comes an investigation by Stephen Buranyi into the sudden swing against the use of plastic. As well as looking at our plastic dependency and the cultural factors that caused us to wake up to the problem, Buranyi speaks to experts and asks if mainstream society’s sudden aversion to single-use straws and coffee cups distracts us from the greater issue of climate change prevention – or are these issues more closely related than we may think?
