It was no great surprise when the motion "China Picks Better Leaders than the West" was resoundingly defeated at the Intelligence Squared debate on Monday night. Initially, 14 per cent of the audience supported the motion, 45 per cent were against and 45 per cent were undecided. But when the motion was put to the final vote, 28 per cent were in favour, 65 per cent against and 7 per cent undecided. It was good knockabout stuff.
Daniel Fung Wah-kin made the best of a difficult hand to play in speaking in favour of the motion. He's a senior counsel and was the former solicitor general and stood in at the last minute for Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee. She had been unable to take part as the debate clashed with unexpected travel plans, and then it transpired she had been elevated to Exco.
Fung essentially argued that given China's stage of economic development, and without denying its imperfections, its current system was right for now.
Along the way he attracted the biggest laughs when reminding us of a couple of Winston Churchill's remarks on the subject. "Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." And then his observation: "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
Boots, a British healthcare and beauty firm, is having another go at establishing itself in Hong Kong. The company recently opened a store-within-a-store at the President Theatre Mannings in Causeway Bay and will be opening in other selected Mannings.
Readers may recall that Boots embarked on a similar strategy in 2002 by opening stores inside Watsons outlets. At the peak of its operations, it had 52 such stores before closing the last of them in 2007.