ANDREW MURRAY surveys a quaking continent whose leaders have no idea how to respond to an openly contemptuous United States
The Tory Megacrapolis
Francis Ford Coppola’s latest film centred on a ‘New Rome’ gets STEPHEN ARNELL wondering about the similarities between lame-duck PM Sunak and one of the last Roman emperors, Honorius
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DIRECTOR Francis Ford Coppola’s epic Megalopolis premiered to mixed reviews in Cannes last week.
The plot concerns a “New Rome” on the Hudson (basically New York) blighted by an accident which throws the city into contentious debate as to its potential rebuilding. Either as a resident-friendly utopian “Megalopolis” of the future, or as just a barely functional updated version of the previous iteration.
Such debates have informed wannabe sci-fi-esque burghs such as Saudi Arabia’s proposed city The Line, a 500m tall, 200m wide, habitation extending 170km into the desert.
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STEPHEN ARNELL sees parallels between the US tech billionaire and HG Wells’s literary creation
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David Lynch’s classic 1980 film The Elephant Man has some cruel parallels with Britain in 2025, argues STEPHEN ARNELL
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Between Musk’s bizarre British power grab and Trump’s overtly corporate agenda, modern robber barons face a growing backlash — and history shows how determined leaders can tame ultra-rich excess, writes STEPHEN ARNELL
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There is no denying Thomas Cromwell's positive and progressive impact on English politics, argues STEPHEN ARNELL
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Decline and fall of the US empire, rehab in Orkney, the younger self, and lone wolves
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There are strange similarities between the ancient emperors and today’s departing Tories, writes STEPHEN ARNELL
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RITA DI SANTO assesses the political reaction to Francis Coppola’s epic, self-funded depiction of the decline of the US empire