One word sums up former PM Mahathir Mohamad’s talk in London on Sept 21. ‘Pathetic!’

Nothing is too harsh, not when the future of a country is at stake.

The Malaysians who wanted to hear Mahathir came for one thing. His message of hope. There was very little of that. He covered a lot of old ground. There was hardly anything new.

The session did not live up to the usual high standards of Mahathir. To be fair, it was not Mahathir’s fault. He was his usual, brilliant, lucid self. His stamina equals that of a man who is 30 years younger.

The fault lay in the quality of the questions. They were neither challenging nor difficult. The Q & A session was a walkover...