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Governor: I will be off- and I will be sad but it is a consequence of history - I will be off at the stroke of midnight on June 30 next year. And I will leave with, in some senses, a heavy heart because while this has been a difficult job it has been an immensely satisfying one and I have met many marvellous, kind, helpful, intelligent people while I have been doing the job.
I think I will also leave with a great deal of confidence in the future. One of the things that interested me today was one of our newspapers which has two headlines on different pages, one of which accuses me of being too anxious about the future, the other of which accuses me of being too rosy about the future. I think that my position, which is one of wary but cheerful optimism, is the right one for Hong Kong because I know that people like you have created this great city, one of the greatest cities in the world, and I don't think there is anything which can really end the momentum behind Hong Kong's success. I am sure that even though there may be some changes and there may be one or two problems along the road, that Hong Kong will continue to be a great place for people to live under, I am sure, a very talented and successful Chief Executive.
Question: I think I would just like to ask if the Governor would like to reflect on what has happened in Macau over the last month or so, where they have a situation where there is a franchise which is accepted by China, a level of franchise, and there will be a continuation of their political figures, and I just wondered if he would want to comment on that in the light of the more complicated situation we have in Hong Kong?
Governor: I don't think I really want to draw comparisons with Macau. Macau is in a very different situation from Hong Kong and you could go back to the late 1960s, to indeed 1967, and draw differences between the way things have been handled in Hong Kong and Macau. And I don't think, when you compare Hong Kong and Macau you would necessarily think that Hong Kong had suffered from things being handled slightly differently from time to time. But the Govemor in Macau, who is an extremely fine man and a great friend of mine, has different but similar problems to those that I have and I wish him luck as he wishes me luck. I think that people in Macau recognise that at least part of their well-being in the future will depend on how well things go in Hong Kong, so we want to do well not only for ourselves but for them and the rest of the region as well. But I don't think that I could really draw a comparison, except to say that I don't think that the electoral arrangements which have satisfied people in Macau would have satisfied people in Hong Kong.