DECOUPLE?'' Suddenly, ''decoupling'' has appeared on the political agenda. Out of nowhere this new buzz word has emerged in the Sino-British negotiations on Hong Kong, and forgive us Governor Patten, taken most of the territory's citizens by surprise.
Three days ago, under Mr Patten's guidance, Hong Kong was not for swerving, let alone ''decoupling''.
''You wouldn't achieve anything at all by trying to separate the DB [District Board] and the MC [Municipal Council] elections from the Legco elections,'' he said on Tuesday, when separation was first publicly flagged in Beijing.
On the same day, Liberal Party spokesman Henry Tang Ying-yen was putting the idea about on local radio and pro-Beijing hardliner Tsang Yok-sing said he believed it provided new opportunities for negotiations. Even Meeting Point members said they could see the point of the idea.
By lunchtime Senior Executive Councillor Baroness Dunn had decided to make one of her rare public pronouncements by contributing that it would not be an easy job to separate them in terms of the laws required. ''You still need to have agreement between the two governments,'' she said.
The background briefings carried the same message. It was not just a question of time being short, the government spokesmen and advisers said. It was the complicated, interlinked arrangements of the package that made separation out of the question.
Firstly, there had to be time for new voters to be registered and that happens in April to August of each year.