by Chris Patten
37. Old man with book, in a garden in the Tarn.
Photographic Acknowledgements
Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. The publishers will be pleased to make good in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention. Numbers refer to plates.
Alamy: 15, 20, 26, 29, 31, 32, 33, 35; Balliol College Archives: 10a (photo by Gillman & Soame), 11 (photo by Ramsey & Muspratt), 12; Ealing Local History Centre: 5; Getty Images: 17 (photo by David Montgomery); © L’Osservatore Romano: 34; © National Portrait Gallery (photo by Bernard Schwartz: 16; PA Photos: 27; Rex Shutterstock: 10b, 21; South China Morning Post: 23; © 1997 Time Inc. All rights reserved. TIME and the TIME logo are registered trademarks of Time Inc. Used under licence: 28; TopFoto: 18, 30 a & b.
All other photographs are from the collection of the author and the Patten family.
Acknowledgements
Like Caesar’s Gaul, my expression of gratitude is divided into three.
First, this book would never have been started without the encouragement and support (as ever) of my agent and friend Michael Sissons. We have been in harness now for twenty years; lucky me. The book would not have been finished without the magisterial editing of Stuart Proffitt and the help of the superb team at Penguin. I am one of many authors who know that Stuart is the best, and that we are fortunate to benefit from his wise, intelligent and extraordinarily well-informed professionalism.
Second, this has been a family effort. My wife, Lavender, chivvied, read, reminded me of things I had forgotten and, as always, supported. This is her story as well as mine. Kate brilliantly uncovered my family history. Laura gave me expert Pilates lessons to keep me, most of the time, on the road. Alice typed and re-typed the book and gave me very smart advice on what I was writing. I could not have written this book without her. I hope she will help me again. I was also, once again, the happy beneficiary of the support of my friend and wonderful PA Penny Rankin.
Of course, mistakes and inadequacies are my own responsibility.
Third, I would like to thank those who have kept me going over years – my cardiologists and their colleagues. Laura Corr and Jonathan Clague and Anthony de Souza (with all their great staff at the Royal Brompton Hospital) have kept me away from Samarra. I am very conscious that my parents would have lived longer if all this medical attention had been available to them. These doctors and nurses are the NHS at its best, a service on which we spend too little money and which depends so much on expertise from the rest of the world.
I enjoyed writing this book; I hope others will enjoy reading it.
THE BEGINNING
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ALLEN LANE
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First published 2017
Copyright © Chris Patten, 2017
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Front cover: Following his appointment as Secretary of State for the Environment, Chris Patten arrives at his new department, 25th July 1989 © Martin Keene/PA Archive/PA Images.
Design: Jim Stoddart
ISBN: 978-0-241-27560-3
7: CRAZY IRISH KNOTS
fn1 O’Neill was a Unionist Prime Minister who tried to improve relations with the Republic and with the Catholic community. He did not last long since his Unionist support drained away faster than Catholic support increased. Greatly daring, he visited a Catholic school. Photographers for the Unionist papers waited to snap something shocking, alas finding no nuns to horrify their readers. One photographer struck lucky. He managed to get a photograph of O’Neill with a crucifix behind him, which crafty juggling in the darkroom was made to look as though it was hovering over his head. The tortured Christ could thus be used to question whether O’Neill knew his own identity any more.
8: OUT EAST
fn1It was moreover a dangerous political choice with some dark precedents. Patrick Gordon-Walker had lost his Smethwick seat in 1964, fought a by-election in Leyton as a seat-less Foreign Secretary in Harold Wilson’s government and promptly lost it, thus virtually terminating his career at the top.
fn2One exception that I would concede is direct Norwegian salmon sales to China after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Chinese writer and dissident Liu Xiaobo. But as one businessman in the fish industry opined, ‘History has shown that salmon always finds its way to market.’ Almost overnight after the Chinese ban, sales of Norwegian salmon to China’s neighbour Vietnam rocketed. Who knows how much of this salmon found its way rather rapidly to China?
fn3When I was staying in Singapore in 1992 on my way to Hong Kong, and much enjoying conversations with the city’s sage (it was after this that he wrote suggesting we should be on ‘Harry’ and ‘Chris’ terms), I asked him how he had dealt with the triads. ‘We used one of your colonial ordinances. We locked them up at Changi.’ ‘How many?’ I asked. ‘About a thousand,’ he replied. ‘All triads?’ I inquired. ‘Probably,’ he said, nodding ruminatively. Not long after I told this story to one or two colleagues in Hong Kong, I heard that it had been repeated by one of them to show how superior was Singapore’s idea of the rule of law to Hong Kong’s.