A statue of former US President Ronald Reagan has been unveiled at a ceremony outside the American embassy in central London. The 10-foot bronze statue was specially commissioned to "recognise Mr Reagan's contribution to ending the Cold War".

It's unfortunate that President Ronald Reagan's global interactive TV Network, Worldnet, no longer exists as it did two decades ago when he stood at Berlin's Brandenburg Gate and dared Soviet leader Gorbachev to "tear down this wall".

No matter how small their post, every embassy public affairs officer who ever arranged an exchange, distributed a pamphlet, or in the jargon of contemporary public diplomacy fretted over "moving the needle" of foreign public opinion knows that a U.S. presidential election is an opportunity. Traditionally they have been animated quadrennial civics classes, dramatizing America's democratic process and contrasting starkly with the brutality with which power changes hands or not in too much of the world.