Hong Kong needs a committed governor with visible political authority to

JOHN Major could be forgiven for wondering why he ever let Chris Patten go to Hong Kong when the two met during the past few days in Britain.

These are dark days for his government, going through every sort of ill from mismanagement to incompetence and scandal. Mr Patten may have his problems in Hong Kong but they are the product of conscionable policy, not error.

Whenever the Governor is in London he sees MPs, ministerial colleagues and journalists. His attraction is hardly diminishing. We can expect to see him back in London in April; he is already booked to give a major lecture in Manchester in the spring along with one in Dublin.

For many, Mr Patten still stands out as a light through the murkiness of British politics, an intellectual heavyweight against some of the rambling lesser men of John Major's Cabinet. That factor helps him to keep the Cabinet united behind him - if theyknow he has done his homework on the democracy package there is going to be no dissent whatsoever on how he runs the issue from here on.

The continuing attraction of Mr Patten for many lies to a degree in the fact that he is running a territory with the sort of economy most Tory politicians would give their eye teeth to do. They are envious of its tax record, its economic growth, its lack of unemployment and, now and again, Mr Patten reminds them of it.

Among those who asked to see him during his latest visit was Max Hastings, editor of The Daily Telegraph, the bible of traditional Tory thinking. Forgive my conspiracy theorising, but one of the directors of the Daily Telegraph is one Henry Keswick, taipan of Jardine Matheson.