A TROIKA OF WISE MEN

The bombing of Moscow railway stations this morning is a sad reminder of the common terrorist threat now facing countries like Russia, Britain and the United States, coming as it does on the heels of a historic agreement on post "Cold War" nuclear arms reduction.

However, the "New Order" which has replaced earlier international hostility has created a set of problems of its own, as my previous post indicates.

Asked by an interviewer whom he would most like to meet, one of the authors of "Londongrad" cites a group of oligarchs and Russian Prime Minister Putin.

My own preferred grouping would be Gorbachev, Vaclav Havel and Lech Walesa, suggested to me by an account in Havel's own memoirs, "To the Castle and Back".

Closer to home, and as an antidote to accounts of oligarch excess, I've just started to read Vince Cable's "The Storm",about the causes and consequences of the global financial crisis. I'll include the good Mr Cable in my "Troika" of wise men.