It is there if you believe in globalisation and is an index-type fund with active management." Stephen Glynn, Jupiter Fund Managers' sales and marketing director, points to the merits of an income fund where income underpins growth, such as the Jupiter Income trust, providing above-average market income and lower volatility. Worth considering too is the Marks & Spencer Investment Portfolio, with a spread of investments across the world's bond and stock markets. My research shows funds that have had the same manager for three years tend to do the best." Of his own funds, Campbell recommends Edinburgh Income, with assets spread across bonds, cash and equities. Graham Campbell, of Edinburgh Fund Managers, says: "A new investor will tend to be looking for a low-risk investment in the stock market. The best thing to do is to look for an established, consistent track record Look to see continuity of management. Magazines and personal finance websites, such as MoneyWorld, may also help.

(See below for details.) Fund managers are concerned first-timers do not get burnt. It runs the Unit Trust Information Service, with free guides to the industry: call 0208-207 1361. Autif can also give you a list of local IFAs by passing your details on to Independent Financial Advice Promotions (IFAP). But be prepared to leave your investment undisturbed for at least five years Anything less is gambling And you do not have to invest a large lump sum straightaway. If you invest via their ISA, they typically reduce the initial charge from 5 per cent to 3 per cent. There are 1,700 funds spread across more than 20 sectors that cover the world as well as separate industries.

Some funds are run on an ethical or environmental basis, while some of the cheapest are so-called tracker funds that simply follow a stock market index up and down. Autif supplies basic information onfunds and their performance. Many management groups welcome regular monthly savings from £10 upwards. Income from a deposit account over that time would have provided £4,530, but the original investment of £10,000 would have remained the same. Such performance cannot be guaranteed, but as little as £10 a month can get you a slice of the equity action. But if you leave all your spare cash on deposit, its value will be eaten into by inflation - at whatever level - and it can never grow in a real sense. If you are new to saving and investing, you may feel instinctively that building society savings accounts are safe and any stock market investment is risky.

But if you leave all your spare cash on deposit, its value will be eaten into by inflation - at whatever level - and it can never grow in a real sense. Figures from the Association of Unit Trusts and Investment Funds (Autif) show that an investor who placed £10,000 in the average UK equity income unit trust 10 years ago, would have received £4,800 in income over the 10 years to 1 October 1999 They would have also seen their savings grow to £17,910. The tension between these polarities makes for interesting reading.. If you are new to saving and investing, you may feel instinctively that building society savings accounts are safe and any stock market investment is risky. Fred Halliday acknowledges his intellectual debt to the Trotskyist historian Isaac Deutscher. Much of the book, however, cuts a path away from Deutscher, who was hardly sensitive about Lenin's victims after 1917.

His surely accurate perception is that the tattered banner of Leninist world revolution still fluttered in the Kremlin even under Brezhnev in the 1970s. The arms aid lavished on liberation movements in Africa and Asia was no accident; it was inherent in the USSR's need to secure itself as a global superpower. Halliday's specialist work on Iran, moreover, allows him to make incisive comparisons between Khomeini and Soviet leaders. If I have a criticism, it is that if Khomeini can be categorised as a revolutionary, then so can Hitler (who is excluded) But this is a quibble. Ideological élan breeds a desire to transform societies beyond the one in which the revolution was born. But revolutionaries in government have to weigh up the risks to domestic consolidation posed by foreign military adventures This was Lenin's dilemma in 1920.