The Governor's policy address drew very different reactions in Hong Kong and London. While the British press was full of praise, there were few good words on offer from members of the Legislative Council and the media in the territory yesterday. That may be an indication that, in some ways, the speech marked a turning point in relations between the colony and the representative of the colonial power on the other side of the world.
To go by what was said and written here yesterday, Chris Patten stands accused of failure, bitterness, anger, patronising the population, interfering in post-1997 policy and not doing enough to protect the territory's people. Plainly, he cannot be guilty of all these sins, since some of them contradict one another.
The Governor went to considerable lengths on Wednesday to convey his admiration for the Hong Kong people, and to assure them that the territory was well-equipped to face the future with confidence. But he faced immediate criticism that the address contained nothing new, and was merely a typical politician's bid to put the best possible gloss on his time in office and to hit out at well-known targets.
Perhaps the truth of the matter is that, as he enters his last nine months here, the Governor is doomed by the calendar to lose consequence in the public eye. Decolonisation is racing ahead and, with it, old deferences are bound to crumble, and new avenues sought.
It is often said that the Hong Kong public is not interested in politics as practised by Mr Patten before he left Britain. The issues which concern the territory's people most of all, day by day, are those which directly affect their livelihood. The task for politicians is to forge a link between these priorities and electoral politics, and it is not apparent Mr Patten has done this.
When something arises which touches a raw nerve, the people of Hong Kong can quickly become politicised - from the Star Ferry riots to Tiananmen Square and the Diaoyu Islands. What they wanted to hear from Hong Kong's last Governor was what the country which has been their sovereign nation for 150 years proposed to do after 1997 if their way of life was changed by forces beyond their control.
