The financial secretary would have expected his budgetary strategy - and he himself - to be in the crosshairs during the Legislative Council's debate on the 2011-12 budget last month. But he might not have expected that legislators would vent their spleens at several other ministers by moving amendments to cut their salaries or their bureau's financial provision for the year. Least of all would he have expected Professor Lau Siu-kai, the head of the Central Policy Unit, to have become the target of so much vitriol.
One after another, legislators from the pan-democrat camp lambasted Lau for the poor advice he gave the government, his public criticism of the government during the recent budget crisis, and his acquiescence to the appointment of the Hong Kong-equivalent of 'princelings' to the Central Policy Unit.
Even though the government suffers poor approval ratings, there may be some truth in the claim that Lau and his team have served it as ably as Achitophel did Absalom. Besides, there is nothing intrinsically wrong with intellectuals selling their services to governments.
A recent Bloomberg article chronicled how scores of prominent Western intellectuals, including Michael Porter, the famed management guru from Harvard Business School, travelled to North Africa to proffer advice or pricey management services to the Gaddafi regime, only to find their ideas handily jettisoned as soon as the Libyan dictator's romance with the West turned sour.
It has always been tempting for intellectuals, from the days of Socrates onwards, to sell their ideas to rulers, both literally and figuratively, so as to have them tested against reality.
Lau cannot be faulted for following in the footsteps of his Western or Chinese forebears in offering his services to the government, and with his extensive academic ties, he and his colleagues did help the government tap into academia.
