Mark Mardell

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It must be serious. They've deployed the Royals.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have been on tour in Germany with a very specific purpose: to reassure the country that Brexit doesn't mean the break-up of a beautiful relationship.

Prince William, after speaking a few words in German, told guests at a British embassy garden party: "This relationship between UK and Germany really matters, it will continue despite Britain's recent decision to leave the European Union. I am confident we will remain the firmest of friends."

But since the British election, German politicians are more troubled than ever about Brexit. The German council for foreign relations' director, Daniela Schwarzer, told me: "Policymakers in Berlin are surprised and worried at the degree of confusion in London, the lack of clarity as to the strategy the UK wants to follow.

"There is a lot surprise about how the negotiations are being handled and the somewhat incoherent messages which come out of London."

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These days it's not that weird seeing a man born in 1949 rocking the crowds at the Glastonbury Festival.

Bruce Springsteen, Tom Waits and Richard Hell were all born that year and I am sure they could still get the campers roaring. The novelty value was that it was a politician, Jeremy Corbyn, who was lapping up the love this year.

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What does Chancellor Philip Hammond's increasingly vocal stance on Brexit say about his intentions, his prime minister and his party?

Is the chancellor intent on using his soft power to take on the hard Brexiteers? He's certainly using it to isolate one very vulnerable prime minister.

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Don't be fooled out of seeing the big picture. This is not politics as normal.

The carefully constructed house of cards has been swept away. It is politics more chaotic, more brutal than any thriller.

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The jovial Conservative Party chairman Sir Patrick McLoughlin is deep in what should be enemy territory, the market square in Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. He bumps into one man who could have been sent by Central Office, if not central casting.

"I was brought up in a mining village, Mum and Dad always voted Labour, but I've started to see a bit of sense. You've got to trust Theresa May, haven't you?"

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Some White House watchers have noted that weekends can be tricky for President Donald Trump.

A number of crises have blown up on a Friday and not been sorted out until Sunday.

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The Russians have reacted with a mixture of contempt and fury to the cancellation of the foreign secretary's trip to Moscow.

It suggests they do, perhaps surprisingly, care quite a lot about it.

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Zachodnia bus station in Warsaw is big, bustling and busy.

People laden with 57 varieties of luggage - from smart suitcases to supermarket bags tied together with string - queue in the spring sunshine, passports open, tickets in their hands.

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On the Falls Road, heart of Republican Belfast. there's a new sense of purpose. Sinn Fein pulled the plug on Stormont, did well in the elections and are now, like the Scottish government, demanding a referendum on their future destiny.

Brexit - rejected by 55.8% of voters in Northern Ireland - is seen as just the latest imposition by England.

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Mrs May did not sprawl on the Royal throne to glare at their lordships. She merely glowered from its steps. The heralds might call it "the perch presumptive". But she might as well have done so: she is queen of all she surveys. The Copeland by-election has established the May hegemony. How long it lasts is another matter.

Her power is unchallenged. There is little serious opposition within her once fractious party and little outside it at the moment, at least not in England.