11LB 30111
ISTRY
Rembers, Ad Hoc Group
REGISTRY
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Make a
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1.
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NIF 2 3/11.
1. Gon / Mr Culshaw
Ms Rosemary Righter
2.
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192
News I
lundered why the Times had.
Some barmy lately
My Man's Miss Sample 24/4
I had a discussion yesterday about the talks with
Ms Righter, the chief leader writer of "The Times", who is
Since I gather she is calling later this el visiting Hong Kong.
(
week on the Governor and some other members of the Ad Hoc Group, 23/
I thought it might be useful if I recorded some details of our conversation.
2-
I found Ms Righter a difficult interlocutor.
She
seemed determined not to let her own prejudices be sullied by
She constantly interrupted, sometimes to rational discussion.
At no point did she make any obvious
make insulting remarks. effort to listen to what I was saying, except in so far as she detected opportunities for distorting it into ammunition for her next burst of hectoring.
3.
Although Ms Righter's own interventions were lengthy and frequent, they were never sufficiently coherent to make her
But during the course of our position entirely clear.
conversation it emerged that the following opinions were prominent in her thinking:
We should probably never have agreed to negotiate with
Having China on the Governor's original proposals. entered into negotiations, we should not have allowed the Chinese to string them out for so long.
Ms Righter appeared to think that this had happened because "Foreign Office sinologists" (among whose number she seemed to include me) had got Hong Kong policy back within their clutches, and saw the talks as another ideal opportunity to sell Hong Kong down the river to the Chinese.
CONFIDENTIAL