Chief Executive Donald Tsang Yam-kuen had a thankless task when he rose to deliver his policy address on Wednesday; unfortunately, he chose to make the worst of it. It is not his fault that he is not a natural orator; it is not his fault that he owes his job to the grey men in Beijing who have no idea how a pluralistic society like Hong Kong works; and it is only partly his fault that he stands alone in the legislature constitutionally deprived of a political party to back him.
Yet, why does he have to underwhelm so thoroughly on these occasions? Can it be that the lifelong bureaucrat simply does not understand that the task of setting out the government's policy programme requires a degree of inspirational encouragement to the people and that a stolid determination to ignore reality is all very well in internal government committees but goes down very badly out on the streets?
Anyone coming from another planet to listen to Tsang's speech would be under the impression that the economic difficulties Hong Kong faced were somehow a force of nature, indeed the product of a tsunami, as he put it many times.
But they would have been heartened to learn that everything is absolutely fine now and will be even finer soon, once applications have been delivered to Beijing begging for more visitors, asking for more permits to conduct financial services for the mainland, more permits to do business across the border and even permission to import more schoolchildren from the mainland.
There may, however, have been some confusion over assertions that Tsang's administration adhered to the mantra of 'big market, small government' while, at the same time, there were many references to how this small government had ambitious plans for shifting the emphasis of Hong Kong's economic development by developing six key industries.
All very confusing, I'm afraid to say. But then again the speech, carefully picked over many, many times in Lower Albert Road, had no real central theme and contained nothing unexpected. This left Tsang as the quintessential 'modest man with much to be modest about' as Winston Churchill, Britain's wartime prime minister, cuttingly said of his main rival Clement Atlee.
Lamentably, we are also reminded that prevarication and a reluctance to tackle the big issues has been developed into a curious art by the chief executive.