Alexander Larman is an author and books editor of Spectator World, our US-based edition
Gore Vidal once sighed that ‘every time a friend succeeds, I die a little’, and there is inevitably a sense that when some idiotic blockbuster makes $1 billion worldwide, our collective intelligence loses a couple of IQ points. It’s a relief, then, when the worst examples of their kind, made at enormous cost to negligible
If this year’s Remembrance Sunday was unusually affecting, it was in large part due to the presence of both the King and the Princess of Wales at the service. After one of the hardest years for the monarchy in living memory, surpassing even the so-called ‘annus horribilis’ of 1992, there is hope that, as 2024
For all his wealth and privilege, it is hard to imagine wanting to be Prince William. Not only was he irrevocably changed by his mother’s tragic death when he was aged 15, but the past year alone has seen his wife and father diagnosed with cancer. His ongoing estrangement from his embarrassing younger brother continues
Since King Charles became monarch in September 2022, after the death of Elizabeth II, he has received reasonably warm treatment from the press. It is easy to forget that, for much of the 1990s and 2000s, he was seen as an unpopular figure, lambasted by the Diana-supporting tabloids for being an adulterer (never mind his
If there is one thing that Paul French’s forthcoming book Her Lotus Year should put right about Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor, it is that her so-called ‘lotus year’ in China in the 1920s was not the sexual bacchanal that it has been painted as by the prurient and the envious. Instead it was
For his first formal address as head of the Commonwealth, King Charles would probably have preferred to veer away from controversy. Unfortunately, delivering an anodyne and people pleasing speech was not on the agenda. Ever since it was announced that Samoa would be hosting a gathering of the 56 Commonwealth countries, it was inevitable that
Politicians are said to campaign in poetry and govern in prose. In the case of Keir Starmer, he campaigned in the most uninspiring, plodding prose imaginable, and has now chosen to govern in what might politely be compared to a child’s first attempt at poetry. It is all word-vomit and incomprehensible mumbo-jumbo. The country needed
The news that the Princess of Wales has been able to return to public-facing duties is both hugely welcome and, after a lengthy period out of the limelight due to her cancer diagnosis, a reminder that she remains the most dutiful and committed of all the members of the royal family. Yet her first official
Strange though it might seem now, at the beginning of 2020 Boris Johnson came close to achieving his childhood ambition of being ‘World King’. Johnson had led the Conservative party to its first decent majority since 1987 the previous month, was in the process of ‘getting Brexit done’ with an ‘oven-ready deal’ and was airily
Say what you like about Steven Patrick Morrissey – lead singer of The Smiths, the Mancunian miserabilist, ‘the Pope of Mope’ etc – but he has a knack, nearly four decades after his band dissolved acrimoniously, for coming out with attention- and headline-grabbing pronouncements. At first glance these declarations might seem like revelatory news stories,
The allegations against Mohamed Al Fayed are dreadful: the former Harrods owner has been accused of raping five women and sexually abusing at least 15 others when they worked at his department store. A BBC investigation, which detailed the allegations, claimed that this abuse took place from the late 1980s to the 2000s. The name
Sensational dramas about the Duke of York are rather like London buses: you wait five years for one, and then two come along at once. Amazon Prime’s three-part series, A Very Royal Scandal, which focuses on the notorious Newsnight interview with Prince Andrew, is released tomorrow. The show follows the perspective of both the journalist
If you’ve ever visited Starbucks, you may enjoy the overpriced coffees or bewildering assortment of half-sweet, half-savoury drinks – espresso frappuccino, anyone? But you may also agree with a mystery shopper who said: ‘It can feel transactional, menus can feel overwhelming, product is inconsistent, the wait too long or the handoff too hectic.’ Anyone with
An official tribute to the late, much-missed Queen Elizabeth II will, in years to come, be unveiled in London’s St James’s Park. But progress on the memorial is far from speedy. The design of the statue or sculpture will not be revealed by the Queen Elizabeth Memorial Committee until 2026. Even then, there is every
While the nation basks in the good news about the Princess of Wales in her battle with cancer, the Royals’ troubles are not entirely over. The not-so-grand Duke of York, Prince Andrew, remains a baleful, apparently ungovernable character. Andrew is no longer a working royal, and is rarely, if ever, seen in public (not even
The Royal Family has not had much to celebrate lately, so the relief that the world will feel with the announcement that the Princess of Wales has completed a course of chemotherapy is going to be mirrored, and then some, at both Kensington Palace and Buckingham Palace. Not only is it deeply welcome for both
Of all the people who might come forward to attack the memory of the late, lamented Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Ian McKellen – a CBE and Companion of Honour, no less – would not be high on the list. Yet in a candid interview that he has given to the Times, McKellen has labelled the
The Duke of Wellington famously suggested that the Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton. To this day, something happens in the hallowed cloisters of the nation’s most famous public school that brings out qualities in its pupils that no other educational establishment can muster. I refer, of course, to those
Given my unequivocal feelings about the Oasis reunion, I was, apparently, one of the few people in Britain who was not attempting to obtain tickets yesterday for one of their stadium gigs next year. As is usually the case these days when a much-hyped act returns for a series of mega-concerts, the wall-to-wall publicity that the concerts
The video game Star Wars Outlaws is to be released this week. The game is set between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi – so in the universe of the original, still-greatest film trilogy – and has been several years in development. According to its ‘narrative director’ Navid Khavari, ‘We didn’t just
