Chris Patten – neither lame nor Peking duck

CHRIS PATTEN is ardently pro-EU. He sees Brexit as a betrayal of the UK - and a bar to Britain remaining a major player on the world stage. And he is clearly no fan of how world politics is panning out . . .

CHRIS PATTEN can be best described as an over-achiever.

Across the 300 pages of his First Confession [Allen Lane, 2017], he wears a bewildering number of hats: Chairman of the Conservative Party; British Cabinet Minister; the EU’s European Commissioner for External Affairs; confidante of Lee Kuan Yew; crony of Margaret Thatcher; chastiser of China; English patriot; Chairman of the BBC; Co-Chairman of the International Crisis Group; advisor to Pope Francis; Chancellor of Oxford University; and — most famously — the last Governor of British Hong Kong.