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How can we best meet those aims? First of all, not by keeping quiet. There was an extraordinary suggestion the other day that the leadership role in Hong Kong for the next 500 plus days should consist of taking a Trappist vow of silence. No one, and no one, should keep silent. This is a time, if ever there was one, for speaking up saying what one wants to happen, and what one expects to happen, to preserve Hong Kong. There has been and continues to be an overwhelming case for all of us to make our voices heard, courteously but firmly. We don't need to respond to propaganda barbs or bluster. But if we don't speak up for what we believe in, no one else will do it for us. That goes for LegCo members, for leaders of business and the professions, for Preparatory Committee members, for - frankly - all of us.

One of the things which occasionally encourages a sense of drift or personal helplessness is the tendency to talk about Hong Kong, to comment on it, in the form of interchangeable and thuddingly dim-witted cliches. For example, for at least 10 years. critics have oscillated between claiming on the one hand that the government is washed up, side-lined, lame in one webbed foot, irrelevant. On the other hand - sometimes indeed at the same time the identical critics ask what are you going to do to solve this particular problem? What promises can you make that you'll deal with that hypothetical horror? What guarantee can you give that some nameless disaster won't be visited upon the territory at some indefinite moment down the road?

So what is the government's position? It's neither retired hurt, nor capable of miracles and of rewriting history. This government will go on governing effectively and decisively until the time comes to hand over to its successor. That is the best way it can help its successor. Any attempt to make that task of good administration more difficult will hurt Hong Kong, and will hurt the SAR Government to come, far more than it would hurt me and my colleagues.

We can't change what is pre-ordained for the future, but we can and will do everything we can to ensure that Hong Kong's future arrives as advertised. No one is worried about whether to use their foreign passport, no one is worried about life without a foreign passport, because of any decision likely to be taken by this government. The worries are about the future, and that is what we need to focus attention on in a constructive and helpful way, encouraging Chinese officials and China's rather narrow circle of advisers in Hong Kong not to drop rocks on all our toes, and to build with us a better and more prosperous future.

That's what the British Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, was working for in Hong Kong and Peking over the last week.