IT IS March 5, 1997. Financial Secretary Mr Hamish Macleod gets to his feet to deliver his last Budget speech in Legco.
''Comrades,'' he begins. ''As you know, this year's Budget has been worked out with the full co-operation of the future SAR Government. In considering our revenue and spending needs, I have taken into account the objectives of the incoming administrationin order to ensure a smooth economic transition.'' Fiction? Probably. For one thing, it's highly unlikely that Mr Macleod will deliver the 1997 Budget. He will be 56 by then and, age aside, should have been replaced by a local civil servant under Government policy.
However, the scenario does raise an interesting question. Namely, how much co-operation will there be over the territory's economic policy.
It was an issue Mr Macleod addressed for the first time last week.
This year's Medium Range Forecast (MRF) takes the territory right to the brink of the handover and no further, prompting speculation that 1994 would see only a three year forecast, 1995 a two-year projection and so on.
Nonsense, said Mr Macleod, the MRF would remain a four-year projection so next year's Budget would see a forecast that runs into 1998.
The line from Lower Albert Road is that the autonomy guaranteed under the Joint Declaration means that the Financial Secretary retains complete independence, even in setting the 1997 Budget less than four months before the handover. London had no part toplay in Hongkong's economic forecasting and budgetary exercise, neither would Beijing.