Sunanda K Datta Ray: Nanny states know best

WHERE MONEY TALKS/ Singapore spoils one for the world, but it must deliver to survive

I like the sound of Lee Kuan Yew's new designation. From senior minister he has become "minister mentor" which recalls the time when Sachin Chaudhuri, the distinguished Bengali barrister, propertyowner and paterfamilias of a rich and extensive clan, accepted the finance portfolio in Indira Gandhi's cabinet. "He was king," a junior kinsman lamented, "but became a minister."

At the risk of offending Lee Hsien Loong, Singapore's new prime minister, I must confess to being glad that the "minister mentor" title indicates no diminution of his father's authority. Such an unfashionable view would not have flowed from my computer a few months ago.

In the great debate between order and freedom, I have always been foremost among those who value a crust of bread and liberty to the comforts of the nanny state.

But after four weeks of travelling on the European continent and living in England since then, I can applaud the British home secretary's draft law empowering the police to arrest people for a range of offences, including littering. I hope David Blunkett goes further, takes a leaf out of Singapore's book and compels litterbugs to clean up their mess under a social work order.

Pestered by beggars (a term that is quite unfairly reserved for the East and seldom, if ever, applied to Western mendicants and vagrants) while dining al fresco at Barcelona's pavement cafés, lugging heavy suitcases along the Paris Metro's long, dirty and evil-smelling passages with nary a sign of elevator or escalator, and surrounded by dire warnings of thieves prowling about, ready to snatch my belongings, in the public library in London's fashionable Kensington district, I longed for Singapore's security, amenities and efficiency.

The contrast was most striking in Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport. My wife and I got there early hoping to squander several pleasurable hours gazing at merchandise we cannot afford to buy, surfing the net for free, sipping richly brewed coffee, and stretching out in comfortably upholstered easy chairs, all commonplace delights of Singapore's Changi airport.

The Paris check-in clerk expressed astonishment at our early arrival but refrained from saying more though I saw him watching with a puzzled look as, formalities over, we rushed through the security gates to what we thought would be paradise. Instead, the area beyond seemed like a shabby moonscape.

Perhaps rich travellers do sample the luxuries that Changi offers to all comers, but the Business and First-class lounges at Charles de Gaulle were firmly shut in our faces. "There are some chairs in the satellite" a kindly official volunteered after seeing us traipse up and down in mounting despair, dragging aching limbs. Thither we bent our weary steps.

It was a long slog to the satellite, a kind of circular bay at the end of a corridor, but, yes, there were one or two rows of upright seats at the end. Though nothing like Changi's reclining sofas smothered in silence to encourage slumber, they did command a view of planes landing and taking off.

But dreams of coffee had to be abandoned for it would have meant another trek back to the central area. Even tiny Brunei airport, we remembered bitterly, had allowed us to shower and change before sitting down with a cup of coffee to check our e-mail.

Westerners are unaware of the extent of their deprivation. On learning that I had flown in from Singapore, a taxidriver in rural England once asked what it was like there.

Anxious to steer clear of political controversy, I replied "Very clean." Swivelling round, the man demanded challengingly, "Cleaner than London?" Now I love London, its grace, dignity, noble buildings and hallowed traditions, but there is no denying that parts of this great city could learn a thing or two from Singapore in tidiness.

At the same time, Singapore can also, of course, learn from London, not least in the qualities of head and heart without which brick and mortar amount to nothing.

Goh Chok Tong, who has just stepped down as Singapore's prime minister, was not unaware of that. His 14 years in office were marked by a range of concessions to fashionable adventure like permission to dance on bar tops or to stand on a soap box and shout to the deafening silence of an empty park in a designated speakers' corner.

If change was not more drastic, it was only because Singaporeans, including the most intellectual critics of the system, are far too comfortable with the status quo to hanker for a real transformation. But this might come about willy nilly if the man at the top desires it, and that is what I fear most about the new regime.

What if Mr Lee Junior feels impelled to live up to the global Joneses and follow fashions set by new brooms in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur? True, that is not the style associated with him but in a gush of enthusiasm, the prime minister did urge Singaporeans to "feel free to express diverse views, pursue unconventional ideas, or be different". That uncharacteristic exhortation could be at the expense of the qualities that underlie the magic talisman "Singapore works" which, his father will tell him, is the city-state's raison d'être.

Lee pere is fond of recounting that Goa and Hongkong have merged with the hinterland and Gibraltar is under pressure to do so. Singapore alone stands out and alone. Singapore spoils one for the world but, as he warns, it must deliver to survive.