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Governor: I very much hope that my successor, whoever she or he may be, will also agree with me that accountability to the public is important which is why I do phone- ins like this. And it makes me think that perhaps I should do more because there is a huge backlog of callers I think this morning.
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But there has only been one caller that well two I think; one early on who phoned us up from Happy Valley and one a bit later - there have only been two people who have been critical. They have got every right to be critical, I just hope that they won't feel inhibited in four-and-a-half years time in expressing their views in an identically similar way. I find that comparing British politics with Hong Kong politics, people in Hong Kong are far more civil, far more moderate. Political debate tends to lack the extremes which you find in Europe or North America. And that is one reason why I think that if Chinese officials could just relax a bit, they would recognise that people in Hong Kong, politicians in Hong Kong, are not a threat, not even those who travel up to Peking with valid travel documents.
Question (Miss Lai) (in Chinese): You are our colonial official and it seems, being Chinese, I should not praise you in the open but I can tell you my dilemma. The performance of Chinese officials is very disappointing, they are calling you names. Now at this time, well I think Hong Kong people are to be pitied at this critical juncture. Now, they said that in the handover ceremony, well, you may not be there. I think this is not to make you unhappy but rather we are made unhappy as Hong Kong people, I think they are being too parsimonious.
Governor: I can assure you that I will be there at the handover ceremony - God willing - and I am sure that everybody will behave with exquisite courtesy. It is extraordinary that one should even think that leading officials should consider behaving other than courteously. But there it is. I have never really been worried about the names I have been called. I'll tell you why. Because in my experience in public life, if people call you names it means they have not got a very good argument. If they have got a good argument they can be sure that just deploying it will completely demolish you. They only actually call you names if they haven't got a decent argument. So I really regard that as a sign of success for Hong Kong because what I have been putting is Hong Kong's point of view, not my own. I have been putting the promises that were made to the people of Hong Kong and which reflect, I still believe, the aspirations of people in Hong Kong.
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