This newspaper's own front page headline on Wednesday's policy speech by Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa exemplifies a misperception of what such a speech can do. 'Tung fails to offer solutions,' it read.
But that's just the point. The last thing we need is a government handing down yet more solutions, only to backtrack from them in a matter of months when they start to go awry again.
The underlying fallacy of this solution is its presumption that public policy problems are like problems in mathematics. Each has a definite and single solution and what is required is to follow the requisite steps of logic to arrive at that solution, QED.
It is somehow also presumed that anyone who steps into a senior government position is a mathematician who can work out these solutions or at least has this expertise available in the civil service.
But think of it rather in terms of a gardener growing a potted plant. There are many things he can and should do. They include providing good soil, fertiliser, clean water and sunlight. If all goes well the seed will turn into the potted plant he wants.
There is, however, one thing he cannot do. He cannot reach down into the soil, grasp the seed between two fingers and pull his plant out of it.