ON March 25, 1992, the then governor, Lord Wilson, rejected legislators' requests to be allowed to put forward, and vote on, amendments to the Budget.
Two years and seven weeks later, his successor has done exactly the same, last week dismissing councillors' attempts to propose a lower rates rise than that contained in Financial Secretary Sir Hamish Macleod's recent Budget.
Governor Chris Patten, the man whose arrival was formerly seen as putting an end to the bad old days when the Government rode roughshod over the wishes of the Legislative Council, has now - at least, in this respect - become a carbon-copy of his Sinologist predecessor Lord Wilson.
So it is hardly surprising that legislators feel angry; sufficiently so for members of two major political parties to walk out in protest during last week's vote on the rates issue, and accuse the Government of reducing Legco to a rubber-stamp.
It hardly seems to matter anymore that their case on the rates was not a particularly good one, since the rates rise was only due to a routine property revaluation, capped at a maximum level of 20 per cent, and was more than offset by the tax concessions elsewhere in the Budget.
Instead what now counts is that the Governor, who used to stress his desire to be accountable to Legco, has shown that he sees himself as more accountable on some issues than others.
