Let's hear it for Henry, he's made the chief executive race racier
Come on, everyone. Let's go easy on Henry Tang Ying-yen. So he's got an illegal underground palace where he can watch the latest movies, soak in a sauna or sip the best Bordeaux wines from his well-stocked cellar. And he's a wife-cheater who's admitted straying. The man knows how to live. Should we fault him for that? But all that aside, we should thank him rather than throw stones at him. He single-handedly turned the chief executive election into a thrilling page-turner. We now have four, not just two, pro-establishment candidates. The 1,200 election committee members are stumped. Beijing has lost control of the puppet strings. Tang alone accomplished all that. So altogether now: 'Thank you, Henry.'
It's bureaucrats, not people, who know what's best for the people
How loud must a voice be for it to be heard? Don't ask our transport chief Eva Cheng. She is tone-deaf. You can shout shrilly, loudly, or hoarsely but it won't make a difference. She can hear you all right, but not what you're saying. That matters little to her. As far as she is concerned, she gets HK$300,000 a month to do as she pleases, not to listen to the people who pay her. How else do you explain her deafness when virtually all of Hong Kong is screaming for the government to drop its plan for mainlanders to drive here? Hundreds of protesters can take to the streets. Political parties can demand the plan be shelved. Thousands can oppose it on Facebook. But politicians and the people who elected them are just a noisy nuisance to bureaucrats like Cheng. Nothing in their rule book says that, as unelected officials, they should hear the voice of the people all the more. Their rule book simply says bureaucrats are the rulers. They know what's best for the people more than the people themselves.
Cars, not pedestrians, will always have right of way
District councillor Paul Zimmerman, who is leading a campaign against mainlanders driving here, says the city's streets must first cater to pedestrians. Surely, he's hallucinating. Has he ever waited at a light to cross the road? Has he noticed how short the green light is for pedestrians and how long it is for vehicles? Public Eye has seen on many occasions little old ladies barely making it halfway across before the green light is gone and the honking begins for them to get out of the way. Has Zimmerman not noticed how our bureaucrats have turned the city's best harbourfront areas into highways, not walkways? Surely, he knows our bureaucrats sit in their oversized offices obsessed with how best to prioritise vehicles over pedestrians. Come back to earth, Paul.