Alexander Larman is an author and the US books editor of The Spectator.
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Say what you like about President Trump – and people very much do – but there is little doubt that, at the outset of his second term, The Donald has behaved like a man in a hurry. Not a day seems to go past without a blizzard of executive orders closing this and shuttering that,
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The recent fires in California have had many tragic effects. Many have lost their homes, possessions and livelihoods, and it has been a stark reminder that even the wealthy and privileged are not immune from a truly awful, life-changing event. Regrettably, however, the disaster has attracted a small but vocal number of people who ostensibly
Unless something changes unexpectedly over the next few weeks, the Academy is likely to shun the film, or face existential ridicule
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In the inimitable words of The Smiths (or, indeed, Carry On Cleo, where they borrowed it from), stop me if you think you’ve heard this one before. For her first official solo engagement outside London since her cancer treatment, the Princess of Wales was photographed visiting the Ty Hafan children’s hospice in South Wales. She
The Oscar-winning director’s name was nowhere to be seen on the movie’s trailer
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The news that the high street arm of the newsagent WH Smith is in ‘secret talks’ to be sold – talks so secretive that they have been splashed across every newspaper and broadcasting outlet in the country – should be greeted with a sigh accepting its all-but-inevitable fate. There can be little doubt that Smith’s,
Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 picture was ridiculed on release. Fifty years later, it is considered a masterpiece
There are a few omissions that may raise eyebrows, some inclusions that are equally surprising
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So, in the end, Prince Harry folded. His much-ballyhooed case about News Group Newspapers, publishers of the Sun, which was due to begin in the High Court today and last for eight weeks, has concluded. The writing was on the wall yesterday, when Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne and News Group Newspapers’ barrister Anthony Hudson appeared
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Whenever a new study of the Nazi regime appears, it is taken as a given that after Adolf Hitler seized power and became dictator of Germany in 1933 an egalitarian society emerged, very different to previous decadent, backward-looking generations. In this modern era, it is assumed, the concerns of the Kaiser and the German elite
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When one of your favourite filmmakers dies, it is hard not to feel a deeply personal sense of loss; the punch in the viscera with the knowledge that someone who has created some of the most iconic pieces of cinema from the past half-century will no longer be bringing his inimitable and unforgettable personal voice
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It may only be halfway through January, but the two opposed branches of the younger royal family have both made their first significant public statements of the year. Meghan and Harry, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex came forward with a typically tone-deaf and self-aggrandising attack on Meta, which ended with a plug for the Archewell Foundation and
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Who do the Duke and Duchess of Sussex think they are? Since their quasi-abdication from the royal family five years ago, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle have seldom found a publicity angle that they were not prepared to exploit for their own personal (and commercial) gain. But the sheer effrontery of the statement that they
As soon as Michael Gracey’s bold decision was announced, it was met with both incomprehension and ridicule
Everyone will have their own grievances and delights as to this year’s award recipients
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As many of us lurched blearily into 2025, desperately trying to remember how, exactly, we’d managed to cause offence to our nearest and dearest in the hinterland between the old year and the new, there was another unwelcome surprise waiting in the wings. In the late afternoon of 1 January, just as the nausea and
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At the beginning of King Charles’s Christmas speech this year, viewers may have been surprised when he did not immediately talk about his, or his family’s, struggles with illness this year, but instead about the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was, in fact, several minutes until the speech made reference to how ‘all of us
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If you’re a regular, or even an occasional, customer at Lidl, you’ll know what to expect. Own-brand foodstuffs that shamelessly imitate better-known manufacturers and, by doing so, flirt with copyright infringement right up to the edge of legality; a selection of wines, spirits and beers that alternate between excellent value for the money and frankly
Sorry, New York: you’ve got serious competition
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Later today, the King will address the nation, as he has annually since he acceded the throne in September 2022. This year’s is expected not only to be the most eagerly anticipated and arguably momentous speech that Charles has delivered, but also probably since his mother attempted to make some sense of the chaotic, grief-stricken
