PETER HITCHENS: Just like the Reds, Greens think they're too nice to be wrong but this country will begin to get colder and darker

This is Peter Hitchens��� Mail on Sunday column

Last week I described a long-ago Christmas in Moscow, in those days the capital city of one of the maddest ideas that ever seized the human mind. It was a crazy place, needlessly dangerous, dirty, corrupt, desperately inefficient.

One fact about it will tell you a lot. We always kept a spare can of petrol in the boot of the car (for petrol could suddenly disappear from the scarce pumps without warning) in case we needed to get to the airport in ...