As the Stop the War Coalition holds its annual conference, ANDREW MURRAY warns that Britain’s alignment with US foreign policy is fuelling global instability and diverting billions from welfare, wages and public services
EVERY summer, beneath the canopy of high trees, in Fermyn Woods in the heart of the Rockingham Forest, Northamptonshire members of a quaintly named organisation called the Purple Empire arrange an annual breakfast.
Chief item on the menu will be the most pungent and malodorous exotic oriental shrimp paste that members of the Empire can find.
Royal guest of honour at the morning feast is Britain’s second largest and most spectacular butterfly — the aptly named purple emperor (Apatura iris). Only male butterflies can attend the feast.
SIMON PARSONS applauds an artist who rescues and rehumanises stories of women, the victims of violence, from a feminist perspective
ALEX DITTRICH hitches a ride on a jaw-dropping tour of the parasite world
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT



