Tag Archives: uk-politics

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 27, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘Can Britain’s Monarchy Survive the Andrew Crisis?’…

The arrest of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor last week, after allegations he had shared confidential information with the late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, sent shock waves around the world.

What happens next is unclear, but the ramifications will go far beyond the former prince, who has consistently denied any wrongdoing related to Epstein. It was one of the most consequential days for Britain’s monarchy in generations, shattering the traditional aura of royal mystique and raising questions of accountability, deference and whether the royal family should have acted sooner.

In a powerful essay for our big story this week, Stephen Bates asks whether the royal family can survive the unfolding scandal.

Spotlight | The limits to the supreme court’s assent
Last week’s declaration by the conservative-heavy court that Trump’s sweeping tariffs are unlawful is a major setback for the president, writes Ed Pilkington

Health | Why big pharma stands to gain from weight-loss pills
Oral tablets could bring obesity treatment into the mainstream, with the sector predicted to be worth $200bn by the end of the decade. Julia Kollewe reports

Special report | The road to war in Ukraine
In a remarkably detailed piece drawing on more than 100 interviews with senior intelligence officials and other insiders, Shaun Walker explains how the CIA and MI6 got hold of Putin’s Ukraine plans – and why nobody believed them

Opinion | A degree? A trade? Every rung for young people is a trap
Is it to be a degree and heavy debt when graduate jobs are shrinking? Or forgoing a degree, knowing society still worships them? Confused, angry: who wouldn’t be, asks Jason Okundaye

Culture | Big in Beijing (but less so in Blackpool)
James Balmont’s band, Swim Deep, plays to crowds of hundreds across the UK – but in China, they perform in front of tens of thousands. And they’re not the only ones

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 20, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘One Day In Rio’ – The untold story of Brazil’s deadliest police raid.

The first shots of an infamous day were fired in Rio’s Complexo da Penha favela at 4.30am. It was 28 October 2025 and the deadliest police raid in Brazil’s history had just begun. By the end of the day, 122 people, including five police, were dead.

The raid, nicknamed Operation Containment, was intended to apprehend members of one of the country’s most powerful organised crime groups, the Red Command – and in particular its kingpin, Edgar Alves de Andrade, who is also known as “the Bear”.

But the list of 100 arrest warrants justifying the operation featured none of the 117 people killed, and at least one of the dead was not involved in organised crime at all. The Bear, meanwhile, remains at large. Activists, security experts and even Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, have described the operation as a futile massacre.

Now, in a forensic investigation encompassing interviews with community leaders, lawyers, security specialists and bereaved relatives, the Guardian’s South America correspondents Tom Phillips and Thiago Rogero have pieced together the full, previously untold story of what happened.

The big story | Continental drift in Munich
Europe’s leaders met to discuss the continent’s future safety at the Munich Security Conference, a gathering characterised by mistrust of the US Trump administration and divisions over Ukraine. Patrick Wintour was there

Spotlight | Pressure mounts for Andrew to talk to police
As calls for the former prince to cooperate with the investigation become deafening, this may be the reckoning the British king’s brother cannot escape. Caroline Davies and Alexandra Topping investigate

Interview | Tracey Emin on reputation and radical honesty
She scandalised the art world in the 1990s with her unmade bed, partied hard in the 2000s – then a brush with death turned the artist’s life upside down. Now Tracey Emin is as frank as ever, as Charlotte Higgins discovered

Opinion | Iran’s 1979 revolution offers some present-day pointers
The similarities between Iran’s current crisis and events preceding the shah’s exile are striking. The radical clerics benefited then – but, asks Jason Burke, who would prevail this time?

Culture | Thundercat on funk, lost friends and being fired by Snoop Dogg
The genre-hopping bass virtuoso has backed Ariana Grande and Herbie Hancock, appeared in Star Wars and become a boxer. Stephen Bruner explains his polymath mindset to Alexis Petridis

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY – FEBRUARY 13, 2026 PREVIEW

THE GUARDIAN WEEKLY: The latest issue features ‘The Men’s Club’ – Epstein’s world and the attendant role of women…

The latest tranche of the Jeffrey Epstein files have been in the public domain for less than two weeks, but already their contents have sent shock waves around the world.

Nowhere is this more true than in Britain, where the fallout has come to the door of Keir Starmer over his appointment of Peter Mandelson as UK ambassador to Washington, amid questions about how much the prime minister knew of his former envoy’s links to Epstein.

Starmer looks to have weathered the immediate pressure to resign this week, despite having lost his influential chief of staff, Morgan McSweeney, over the scandal. But the vultures are still circling and it seems a matter of when, rather than if, the prime minister will go. Kiran Stacey weighs up the possible challengers from within the Labour party, while Oliver Holmes and Chris Michael consider why the scandal hit home so hard in the UK.

Spotlight | The last post for press freedom in the US?
Jeff Bezos’s axing of more than 300 jobs at the Washington Post has renewed fears about the resilience of America’s democracy to withstand Donald Trump’s attacks. Ed Pilkington and Jeremy Barr report

Technology | The continuing risks and rewards of AI
As policymakers and tech executives prepare for the next global AI summit in India, an annual safety report highlights the issues that will be at stake, writes Dan Milmo

Interview | Can Zack Polanski pull off a green revolution in the UK?
With polls and membership at an all-time high, the UK Green party is having a moment – and it’s largely down to the party’s charismatic (if slightly cheesy) new leader. Simon Hattenstone went on the road with him

Opinion | What links UK politics and Epstein? A thick seam of contempt
We’re often told the British prime minister, Keir Starmer, is a ‘decent’ man. But in appointing Peter Mandelson he chose political convenience over doing right, argues Nesrine Malik

Culture | The sign language of Margaret Calvert
Airports, road signs, typefaces … the design legend revolutionised how Britain looked and her brilliantly clear designs are still used today. Catherine Slessor met her