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Jonathan Braude

WE'RE thinking of running against Samuel Wong in next year's race for the Engineering functional constituency.

   Our platform? Tradable ''death quotas'' for the Hong Kong construction industry, like the ones allocated by China's Coal Ministry to its most productive pits to maximise efficiency.

   Dr Wong told us he would definitely not be including it in his election manifesto. But UDHK infrastructure spokesman Albert Chan thought the big contractors would welcome the policy.

   Let's say for instance the Government exceeds its quota for workers killed on the Tsing Ma Bridge. It could turn to Gammon and ask if it had any unused deaths left for the current quarter and how much it would be prepared to sell them for.

  We foresee a lucrative business in death quota futures on the commodity markets too. It's probably only a matter of time before we see Shenzhen take the lead internationally by opening a dedicated industrial accident quota exchange.

  ''More deadly than trading in pork bellies,'' quipped a broker friend of ours.

  True. But it will still bring home the bacon.

FROM the Corridors, of course, saw only the business potential in the proposition. But Albert Chan took a more moral view. Karl Marx, he said would be crying out from the grave to learn that a communist country was legitimising the sacrifice of workers in the name of productivity. ''Marx said the workers were in chains,'' he said. ''Now they're being put to death.''   On second thoughts, he reflected, perhaps Hong Kong most dangerous industries could go for an open tendering system. The biggest quota to the highest bidder. PERHAPS if our proposal is popular with the markets we could run instead for the Finance constituency, which seems to like its Legco representative to be controversial. The flamboyant Chim Pui-chung, the incumbent Finance man, is in trouble again for telling ATV's News Tease that all women were ''chickens'', a demeaning Cantonese slang expression for prostitutes.

   One of our female colleagues, rather intriguingly, said she thought this was a feminist statement, because it was honest. This being a politically incorrect column, we have decided to protect her identity.

  But independent legislator Christine Loh, whose political correctness is not in doubt, came up with another explanation we're still puzzling over. In traditional Chinese arranged marriages, if a husband was too young, too old or - embarrassingly enough - too dead to attend his own wedding, his place in the ceremony was taken by a live chicken. Perhaps, Ms Loh suggested with a twinkle, that was what Mr Chim was referring to; maybe he was not being derogatory at all.

  We are unsure how to interpret this. Marriage between chickens seems innocent enough. But was the hen entering into this arrangement freely? We're not convinced a modern woman like Ms Loh should be so ready to turn a blind eye.

ALL the above is, we admit, in execrable taste. Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office Director Lu Ping, however, is a man of refined tastes. Especially in ties and suits, which are always chosen to set off his reassuringly avuncular white hair to best effect.

   So reporters up in Beijing for a Preliminary Working Committee meeting were not surprised to catch sight of Director Lu through a glass panel straightening his tie, combing his hair and generally preening himself for the forthcoming encounter with the press.

  Similarly in character, they thought, was the show he made of not wanting to come out and speak to them. Chris Patten's nemesis might have something on his chest. But he likes to play hard to get.

  Always willing to oblige, the assembled media began to chant words to the effect of ''Lailai, Lulu, lailai,      Director Lu,      Come and say: 'Hi!' ''   Sure enough. Out he came and started complaining about the British selling him tomatoes and delivering cucumbers.

  ''We wouldn't have minded,'' one reporter told us. ''But it made us feel like small potatoes.'' THE press were beginning to get much the same feeling about Commissioner of Policy, Eddie Hui, who was in Beijing for talks with his mainland counterpart. They had all booked in to the Public Security Bureau's four-star Capital Hotel (no, not Capital Punishment Hotel) where Mr Hui was supposedly staying.

   Only when they'd waited the whole morning for him to come down and vouchsafe them a few words, did a kindly waiter take pity on them and explain that the Commissioner had moved to another hotel.

  ''We thought it was Li Kwan-ha all over again. Just another cop trying to trick the press and run away,'' said our informant.

  As it turned out Mr Hui was quite happy to talk, once they'd traipsed accross town to the 5-star Kuan-lun Hotel. He'd been moved there, courtesy of his PSB hosts, in recognition of his importance and status.

  Chinese Commissioner of Police Zhu Entao explained it was all part of the PSB's attempt to be open and accountable. After all, the press were eventually told where to find Mr Hui, weren't they? LEGISLATIVE Councillor Anna Wu has apparently struck lucky with the latest addition to her Legco staff, coming to Hong Kong from America next month. David Viotti claims to have been voted the ''funniest person'' at Georgetown University in Washington.

  A tough record to live up to. But Mr Viotti went on to additional studies at Oxford, where he was a member of an improvisational comedy group. (Unlike Bill Clinton who studied in the same cities, but only took up improvisational comedy on his return to Washington last year). So we look forward to some great contributions to this column.



Politics can be such a deadly serious business