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But, as I said this morning, there are more substantial issues to talk about. If Chinese officials want to resile from their previous objectives on the handover ceremoney, well, it's sad for the SAR Government, but in that case we will have to make our own arrangements. It would send the most awful signals to the world about the future of Hong Kong if we were to spend the next 15 months rattling sabres about People this handover ceremony, about how we depart and how the Chinese arrive. would think we were out of our senses. I think they are pretty surprised at the moment that Chinese officials won't talk to us about important issues, but it's for them to explain. It's not demeaning for us, it is rather demeaning for them.

Your second question?

Question: In your speech this morning about 'Asian Values and Asian Success' you said that Marx and Weber were correct in their analysis of the processes by which values do not change in respect of each other. It seems to me that your account was very much a Marxian analysis -

Chris Patten: I'm a well known Marxist!

Question: 1 am interested to know whether all these years you have been working and thinking in this kind of materialistic framework, or is this something you found in the past few years when you were in Hong Kong? To put it simplistically, have you turned left or right?

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Chris Patten: I thought what I was saying this morning which some would say was all too typical of my political stance on other issues that I agreed with both Marx and Weber I was trying to argue that values affected economic development, but economic development equally affected values and affected society broadly, so I was backing both horses. It was a quenelle - is that what I mean? Yes. I guess it would be difficult with the benefit of hindsight to regard a bet on March in a quencile as necessarily a winner, but I thought I was taking a characteristically sensible and balanced approach to the issue.

Question: You mentioned this morning about freezing out people who have had changing views in the confrontation process. By doing that the Chinese would find it difficult to invest in the economy of Hong Kong. What sort of reply would you give to the Government if they froze those people out and what do you forsee?