Arthur Li could have been more forceful in doing his job

'Mr Yu also challenged Professor Li's claim that he had only been engaging in repartee when he told reporters in October 2002 that he would 'be courteous before resorting to force' if Chinese University and the University of Science and Technology refused to merge. The counsel put it to him that he said that deliberately rather than by accident.'

SCMP, May 23

I am a little puzzled at just how anyone could go about saying something by accident. I know that academics are prone to it but it is still an unusual notion - 'Oh, did I say that? Sorry, I didn't mean to. It just popped out of my mouth. Couldn't do anything about it.'

In this case, however, Education Secretary Arthur Li Kwok-cheung confirmed that he meant it and let us be glad that he did. I have become a little bewildered over the last few days by the hand-wringing nature of some of the testimony from education department officials at this inquiry into university palace politics.

Let's get one salient fact straight right away. We, the public of Hong Kong, put about HK$47 billion a year of our tax money and other public revenue through this education department. That's a 47 with nine zeros behind it and it is a lot of money. It is the single biggest item of government expenditure.

And I am very much against the idea of handing out that kind of money to schools and universities without any oversight of how they spend it. That would be defined as bad government. We have established the education department to maintain this oversight and it is chiefly Arthur Li who has the job of seeing to it.