Facing economic turmoil, Jim Callaghan’s government rejected Tony Benn’s alternative economic strategy in favour of cuts that paved the way for Thatcherism — and the cuts-loving Labour of the present era, writes KEITH FLETT
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

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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