OPINION: Clean up the image of the Commonwealth

As a British delegate to six CHOGMs, as Commonwealth Heads of Government meetings are described, I drew the short straw. The venues were wonderful - Melbourne, New Delhi, Nassau, London, Vancouver and Kuala Lumpur - but the content was not. The main aim was to spin the lady for not turning, usually in a minority of 49-1, into reverse, forcing her to impose all sorts of sanctions on apartheid South Africa. Commonwealth conferences became places where they lambasted the British, as the old colonial power, while holding out their begging bowls.