Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten’s efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing.

There were serious ructions with China along the way, and some within Hong Kong itself, about the new airport, passport rights, civil service pensions, Vietnamese refugees and, more than anything else, Patten’s reforms. the diaries themselves, kept from the time of his appointment in April 1992 to the handover just over five years later, have not been seen before and make for consistently good reading .In The Hong Kong Diaries Chris Patten details his struggle as the last governor of Hong Kong to energise the dying days of British rule. In the course of his diaries, Patten argues convincingly that for Britain or any other country to abandon liberal principles and yield to the Chinese Communist party's demands at every opportunity brings neither political nor commercial benefits. Nonetheless the sheer amount of hard work and effort he and his staff in HK put in to ensure the handover went as well as it did is to be applauded. In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not (as other British colonies over the decades) for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. His style occasionally stumbles into overly long sentences which can make his point or observation hard to decipher.

Here are some remarkable snippets: “I am going to have to go on making the distinction between what so many rich people think is all right for Hong Kong and what they want for their own families. Lord Patten spent much of his time in Hong Kong struggling against British officials and members of the local elite who believed it was not worth trying to push China to accept more democracy in pre-handover Hong Kong-much less expanding it without China's approval. But he had one supreme advantage – the loyal backing of John Major, the prime minister, and Douglas Hurd, the foreign secretary, back in London. Ted Heath, political apologist supreme for China, is a “despicable old bore”, and Geoffrey Howe little better.For anyone who has a special interest, ties to and direct experience of HK as I have been lucky to have, this book is a must read. p. 317); “The sins of blimps in blazers at the Hong Kong Club, now retired to Gloucestershire or Scotland with their millions, are going to rebound on us. Patten's best efforts, Hong Kong became the canary in the mine shaft, showing what happens when the Chinese Communist Party is allowed to get its way. The honest opinion of his observations over the Hong Kong populace is carefully crafted and one could be easily moved by his love towards the Pearl of the Orient after reading. As an insider's account, The Hong Kong Diaries is filled with that daily sense of grappling with a multi-headed hydra .

It is valuable that his diary entries include views and analyses that were very different from his (some of which he vilified).From reading them, you would never guess how heavily invested British security and intelligence were in Hong Kong. Eschewing the feathered hat, the uniform and all the other flummery that goes with governing an outpost of the British empire, he plunges into a series of walkabouts, holds public meetings, looks for ways of redistributing some wealth and makes no secret of his sympathy for the democrats.