Hello? Hello-o-oh? Anybody there? Calling any legislator interested in the media (as opposed to being featured in the media). Would anyone like to put their name on a short - very short - list? The big problem facing Emily Lau Wai-hing over the next few weeks, we understand, is finding members for her Information Policy Panel. By Legco standing orders, six members have to sign up. Last year, about four signed up and the Legco secretariat had to 'jog some memories' (possibly a euphemism for threatening to disconnect the hotline to their favourite television news editor if they failed to join). Secretly, government officials may be hoping Legco members refuse to sign up and thus deprive Ms Lau of one of her forums for torturing them. Our colleagues in the Beijing-backed press were handed a real scoop the other day. Xu Simin, , publisher of the equally pro-China Mirror Monthly, called in reporters from Wen Wei Po, Ta Kung Pao, and Commercial Daily to brief them on his plan to nominate the Chief Justice, Sir Ti Liang Yang, as a candidate for chief executive. That was on August 23, a week before anyone else had heard of the plan. They decided not to run the news. Nominations weren't open yet, they thought. So he could not be nominated, could he? Logical? Yes! Politically correct? Yes indeed! But news sense? Sir T L, by the way, has a little secret. His birthday is June 30. Will he celebrate as Chief Executive of the future, or as a man looking back to his glory days under colonial rule? (One can take this sort of thing too far. An expatriate colleague celebrates his 30th wedding anniversary on July 1, 1997. All those fireworks, just for us? And will he hear the strains of The East is Red and say 'Darling, they're playing our song?') Lisa Wang Ming-chuen, the Preparatory Committee member and a local National People's Congress delegate, has impeccable credentials. No one can doubt her confidence in post-handover Hong Kong. But that may not be quite so true of her boyfriend. According to Next magazine, Law Ka-ying, a former Chinese opera star and now popular comedy actor, was recently granted permanent residency in Singapore. And to return to this week's declared candidate, will some colonial poet of the future be writing of 'a corner of China that is forever England'? Or will Sir Ti Liang Yang have to drop that knighthood should he win the race to become Chief Executive? The Basic Law makes clear what will happen to the full UK passport he holds by virtue of marriage. It will have to go. But, according to the Foreign Office, 'a knighthood is a reward for past services, and cannot be taken away unless the holder brings the Crown into disrepute.' There are good precedents for knights serving in post independence Indian Governments and elsewhere too. But their countries were still members of the Commonwealth which Hong Kong will not be. Sir T.L. could not claim a parallel with the knighthood bestowed on Irish rock star Sir Bob Geldof for Band Aid - that was an honorary title. Nor can he join the international hall of fame of Foreign Knights, like Sir Ronald Reagan or Sir Caspar Weinberger. His is a solid gold British title. From the Corridors has an answer: how about if China introduced knighthoods? One title, two systems.
