On Wednesday, Chris Patten, the 28th and last British Governor, will deliver his fifth and final policy address to the Legislative Council. No doubt he will use the opportunity to sum up his achievements, as well as to make suggestions to his successor.
I have often said that Mr Patten is the best Governor Hong Kong has ever had. This is not difficult because the others were so awful.
Amongst other things, Mr Patten will again take credit for opening up government and making it more accountable, increasing spending on social and education programmes and improving protection for civil liberties.
Few people would disagree that the five-year agenda launched by Mr Patten shortly after he arrived in the summer of 1992 consisted of programmes which should have been implemented decades ago.
Mr Patten's efforts in 1992 were too little, too late. Had even a limited form of representative government been introduced before the Sino-British negotiations on the future of the colony began in 1982, the history of Hong Kong would have been quite different.
In castigating Britain for its failure to introduce democratic reform in Hong Kong decades ago, I am painfully aware that the local people also have to share part of the blame for not demanding it. Democracy does not fall like manna from heaven.