One law for the rulers...

 

Safety First

 

We are the people our government warned us against

 

If music be the food of love, play not

Hong Kong's Education Secretary Kevin Yeung has instructed that: “Schools must not allow their students to play, sing or broadcast any songs which will disrupt the normal operation of schools, affect students’ emotions or contain political messages.”  Well, there goes the music syllabus!

The Truth At Last

Bombe Surprise!

After arresting a number of people accused of plotting bomb attacks in Hong Kong, the police described them as using violence “to intimidate in order to achieve political ends”.  So, exactly what the police themselves have been doing for nearly nine months now.

Now the government's budget proposes a 7% boost in police manpower.  There are two problems with this.  The first is that the last thing most Hongkongers want is more cops on the street when they have totally lost faith in the force already.  People are tired of being teargassed, pepper-sprayed, beaten over the head and having their freedom of assembly violently repressed.  Meanwhile the government continues to ignore widespread demnds for an independent inquiry into the force's conduct, even though some of its own erstwhile allies have joined the call for it.

The other problem is that the force has so thoroughly disgraced itself that it is hard to imagine it still being an attractive career option for anyone sincerely wanting to serve the community.  This means that most of the 2,543 extra posts created are likely to appeal only to thugs and bullies, of whom we have far too many in the force already.

Unfortunately, the government is following its usual "eat your shit first or you don't get your candy" strategy by lumping this increase together with other budget measures in a single bill, so that the only way democratic lawmakers can vote it down is to also reject the popular and much-needed relef measures in the budget.

Lawyers speak a different language

So is that a yes or a no?  Our devious Justice Secretary isn't saying.

Lord, what fools these ministers be!

This is Hong Kong's "Secretary for Justice" - who decided that this would be a good time, in the middle of months of violent clashes on the streets of Hong Kong, to fly to London (presumably at the taxpayers' expense) to promote the territory as a centre for dispute resolution.  Truly, these people make satirists redundant.

A Man of His Word?

I'd reather be dead in a ditch than still in the EU after October 31st, declared Boris Johnson.  Well, those millions of us Brits who value our rights as European citizens can be glad that we will not lose them for at least a while longer, but sadly Boris's claim seems to be, as Jeremy Corbyn has pointed out, another broken promise.

Both Sides Now

You could believe that Donald Trump is sincere in his condemnation of racism following recent mass shootings - or you could look at his past record of racist statements.  The choice is yours.

Carrie on Lying

Does anyone in Hong Kong really believe that Carrie Lam thought up the controversial extradition bill all by her vacuous self?  It has Beijing's fingerprints all over it, not least in the indecent haste with which the usually lethargic government is pushing through a .change widely opposed by the legal sector, many of Hong Kong's major trading partners, large parts of the business sector (including some the government can usually rely on for support), and most importantly, the majority of the Hong Kong people.

Then there was her description the other day of the Tiananmen Massacre candlelight vigil as "some sort of gathering to commemorate a particular historic incident".  I'm not a violent man, but I really wanted to slap her around a bit and shout "It was a bloody mass murder, not a 'historic incident'" in her uncaring ears.

And a day or two ago, she even started playing the mother card: "As Chief Executive and a mother of two...".  Really, give us a break.

Pressing On

Question for Christians: could there be a more convincing advert for atheism than "liar says God wanted an even bigger liar to be President"?

And since the White House Press Secretary's main job is to give regular press briefings, and Sarah Sanders hardly ever does so, why is she still receiving her salary?  Just another Trumpian snout in the taxpayer-funded trough.

The Con Way

A&E – the difference between

In British slang, it is commonly said of an ignorant person that he "doesn't know his arse from his elbow".  However, one would expect medically-trained individuals to have a somewhat more accurate grasp of basic human anatomy.  Sadly, an elderly patient in Queen Elizabeth Hospital recently found herself the victim of incompetent radiology staff who don't appear to know the arse from the other nearby orifice. As one medical specialist drily commented, "it should not have happened because there were usually no difficulties locating the vagina and anus" – something most of us learn quite early in life.

Leading from Behind

As if he has no responsibility for the outcome of his own actions.

Typically Trumpian

Donald Trump's response to the fire in his eponymous New York building displays all the gracelessness and lack of human warmth we so detest in him.  No mention of sympathy for those injured, one of whom later died.  The condescending parentheses around "and women", as if female firefighters counted for less than men.  Instead the braggart seizes on a tragedy as yet another excuse to blow his own tarnished trumpet.  A masterpiece of bad taste!

Permeability

Full of nothing and signifying nothing

It's a little early in the year to be giving out our coveted awards, fondly known as The Privates, but we already have a winner in the Most Vacuous Political Statement of the Year category.  So-called President Trump during his visit to Paris:

Yeah, something could happen with respect to the Paris accord.  We'll see what happens, but we will talk about that over the coming period of time and if it happens that'll be wonderful, and if it doesn't that'll be OK too.

Words used: 41
Information conveyed: 0

Seven Reasons the Pan-Democrats Must Stand Firm

It was Parliament of Liars time yesterday as the Legislative Council began its long-awaited debate on the government's political reform package.  Before the members began their dissection of the bill, its two main proponents both used misleading and arguably downright dishonest arguments in its support.

Chief Secretary Carrie Lam, as ATV news reported it, "told lawmakers that the public opinion is clear" and they should vote accordingly.  Excuse me?!  It is true that a few months ago the package commanded modest net support (though never an absolute majority) in the opinion polls, but opinion has gradually been swinging against it, with some recent polls showing more voters against it than in favour.  Certainly there is no great public consensus welcoming the package - it would be truer to say that public opinion is deeply divided on the issue.

Then Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen "told lawmakers that the government's political reform package has made use of all the leeway available under Beijing's framework for the 2017 Chief Executive election" (ATV again).  "Yuen also dismissed suggestions by the pan-democrats that the nominating committee would serve to vet candidates based on their political inclinations, and anyone who wanted to run for the top job could do so if they get the support of the committee."  This is about as meaningful as saying that "anyone who wants to can be rich in Hong Kong if they can win the Mark Six lottery" - we all know that the whole point of the nominating committee is to ensure that only Beijing's favoured candidates can get on the ballot.

The overall thrust of Yuen's argument was to paint the limitations on democracy as a legal matter about which nothing could be done.  This drew an uncommonly caustic response outside the chamber from the usually urbane Civic Party leader Alan Leong, himself a lawyer: "I would respectfully ask the Secretary for Justice to shut up!"

As the debate continues today, the likely outcome appears pretty much as expected.  But just in case any of the pan-democrats may be wavering in their determination to veto the bill, here are seven good reasons why they should stick to their guns:

1. Public opinion is far from solidly in favour of it - see above - and the 40% of the population opposed to it deserve to have their voice heard.
2. It is not a legal matter - the biggest flaw in the Basic Law is that the body charged with interpreting it is not an impartial legal tribunal, but a partisan political body with a vested interest in the outcome of its own decisions.  The NPCSC's interpretations of the Basic Law are inevitably political decisions, made in China's perceived interests.  This means that far from being an immovable barrier to progress, as Rimsky Yuen suggests, they can be changed if the Central People's Government can be persuaded that it is in their interest to do so.  Though the SAR government is pretending that the current decision - whichever way it goes - marks the end of the debate, the need for a more genuinely representative system in Hong Kong will if anything become more apparent in the months ahead, and the issue will inevitably be reopened, with the possibility of a different decision.  Indeed the Basic Law specifically states that certain decisions will be made in the light of "the actual situation in Hong Kong".
3. Legislators are not robots - even if it were true that public opinion largely supported the package, it has long been accepted that elected representatives in a parliamentary democracy are not delegates, bound to follow the public's wishes.  Indeed, if that were so, we could have government by public opinion poll with no need for a legislature at all.  Any student of politics will be familiar with Edmund Burke's classic statement of this principle in 1774: "Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays instead of serving you if he sacrifices it to your opinion".  Our legislators may not always be wiser than us, but they should at least be better-informed on the matters they deal with - it is part of their job to be so. 
4. Right is right and wrong is wrong - following on from this principle, even if a majority of the public support a particular position, that does not automatically make it right - otherwise we would still believe that the Earth is flat.  A legislator who considers something wrong has a duty to follow his conscience and vote against it.  Without this, we could never have moral leadership in politics.  Many of the great advances in human progress - civil rights, the abolition of slavery, the end of capital punishment - have not initially enjoyed overwhelming popular support, but were pushed forward by courageous and far-sighted politicians.
5. Responsibility to constituents - notwithstanding that elected representatives are not obliged to follow every whim of the public, there is an expectation that they will nevertheless stick to the general principles on which they sought election.  The pan-democrats were voted into office by those who wanted them to pursue genuine democracy, and it would be a betrayal of their constituents to settle for the fake version offered by the government.
6. Hypocrisy - the government's claim that LegCo members should follow public opinion is of course merely a tactic, not a principle - you would have to be very naive to believe that if the opinion polls suddenly showed 60% solidly against the reform bill, the government would start telling the DAB to vote against it on the same basis!
7. The consequences - but what is so bad about the government's package?  Mainly this: the biggest danger is that the proposed system, while systematically excluding large swathes of public opinion from candidacy, gives an illusion of democratic choice.  The next CE could - and probably would - use this spurious mandate as an excuse to pursue policies which would advance the CCP's apparent agenda of cultural assimilation, tilting further towards "One Country" and weakening the "Two Systems" safeguards which keep Hong Kong worth living in.

Carrie On Regardless

The wit and wisdom of Carrie Lam:

ATV News: "Chief Secretary Carrie Lam urged pan-democratic lawmakers who have vowed to veto the government's reform proposal to put aside their ideals in pursuit of democracy and support the plan."

ATV News: "Lam shouted slogans and called on everyone not to listen to people who claim the package is not real universal suffrage."