Asians [...] put more emphasis on order, stability, hierarchy, family and self-discipline than Westerners do. - Chris Patten

While we were allegedly taking part in a golden age of China, the head of the Chinese Communist Party was instructing party officials and government officials to engage in an intense struggle against all the things that we and other liberal democracies stand for: Rule of law, parliamentary democracy, universally valid human rights, historical inquiry, all those sorts of things.

Nevertheless, it is true that on 1 July 1997 Hong Kong became the only example of decolonization deliberately accompanied by less democracy and a weaker protection of civil liberties. This was a cause for profound regret, especially for the departing colonial power. But it was China's doing and China's decision. I am pleased that Britain narrowly avoided complicity in the dishonourable act of denying the citizens of free Hong Kong what they had been promised in 1984.

[Nigel Farage] offers nothing for a healthy Conservative future. His saloon bar bluster, if translated into policy, would give us Liz Truss economics, Jeremy Corbyn foreign policy (which would be much loved by Putin) and an approach to our nation's identity akin to that of Tommy Robinson (albeit Tommy Robinson with a cravat).