In a gun-slinging, dick-swinging Trump vibe, it’s small wonder Die Hard appeals | Alison Phillips

With the left desperately in need of a hero, perhaps it's time to reclaim John McClane's character battling global greed

Donald Trump's appointments to his top team continue, as Rishi Sunak would have said, at pace". There's a vaccine sceptic in at health, a misogynist as attorney general, a possible Russia sympathiser as director of national intelligence and first choice for defence is a Fox News anchorman. Oh, and the new US ambassador to Israel believes there's no such thing as the West Bank.

Yet what they may lack in intellectual rigour, moral rectitude and empathy, they more than compensate for in fake tans, chiselled jaws and mistresses. Where once Gordon Brown worked to build a goat" (government of all talents), Trump is opting for a government of old goats. We could discuss the social, economic and cultural failings over two centuries of US history that have brought it to this place. But I've only got 400 words, so let's talk Die Hard instead. (Die Hard 1, 2 and 3 obviously. Everyone lost interest by the last two.)