I've met enough KGB colonels in my life.

One does not succeed by sticking to convention.

Solving new problems is what keeps us moving forward as individuals and as a society, so don't back down.

So many dictators trying to blackmail the free world because they have no way to compete on ideas, innovation or creativity. The Cold War was two competing visions of the future. I was always anti-communist but it was an idea at least, an alternative idea. We do not have a competing vision for the future because the ideals of these dictators are in the past. They are time travellers. They need confrontation and destruction to survive. The problem is, many people in the free world are sympathetic to Vladimir Putin.

All that now seems to stand between Nigel and the prospect of the world crown is the unfortunate fact that fate brought him into this world only two years after Kasparov.

We see threats to liberal democracy coming from lots of directions. We have to create something new, a common response, because in so many places - the UK, France, Germany - ultranationalists and the far left threaten the free market and liberal democracy.

The legend of the best player of chess has been destroyed.