After a week in which the Governor has been subjected to more brickbats from legislators and the local media than he has received in four years from the entire Chinese Government, it is nice to know that one man, at least, is on his side.
David Chu Yu-lin, usually known for his pro-Beijing views, has been telling everyone Hong Kong's become a better place since Chris Patten came to town.
Sure, said Mr Chu on his way into the Legislative Council chamber for the Policy Address on Wednesday, the Governor's reforms had failed and had been misguided. But 'all the debate and discussion' which they had set off had been 'beneficial'. He had not foreseen that, but it was true.
We were, as the Governor would say, gobsmacked. If there was ever a British plot, this was it. Forget the secret plans to sabotage the economy, steal the reserves, exert influence after 1997 etcetera. The whole idea was to leave Hong Kong people with a taste for political debate and discussion.
Stand aside, Kerry McGlynn! The Governor has a new spokesman. W What the Governor also has is a new favourite political philosopher. When he first arrived here he used to quote Karl Popper, a man famous, among other things, for suggesting that since Marxism, like psychoanalysis, cannot be conclusively proved false, it must be unscientific.
This week the title of favourite went to Alexis de Tocqueville, the 19th century French thinker. De Tocqueville might, as it happens, also find favour with Hong Kong's property-lloving masses. He urged politicians intent on maintaining democracy to do all in their power to make sure as many citizens as possible had property.
