“I grew up as this rather lonely European kid living in the east Malaysian jungle…” — Clare Rewcastle Brown

The people I spoke to who were worried they would be killed for talking to me are now all ministers in the government. This is a major, major breakthrough. You have democracy actually working, the return of the rule of law, in an area of the world which was really tipping into the night.

I soon realised the state rulers were being protected by the federal government who relied on these rotten boroughs to deliver their vote.

As a kid, my first friends were the local children and we used to climb trees and run barefoot, dodging the odd scorpion.

Prime Minister Najib had continuously denounced me as an enemy of the Malaysian state and accused me of spreading Fake News.