Was watching the films Reds last night and was intrigued by some parallels with our own recent history. Two comrades in arms with an uneasy relationship; one a charismatic, inspirational leader, the other an unemotional, humourless intellectual; the former forced out of office 10 years after the revolution he had engineered. As Karl Marx cribbed from some lesser-known writer: history repeats itself, the first time as tragedy, the second as farce.