In the Bible, Joshua, the leader of the Israelites, fought the battle of Jericho and the walls came tumbling down. This is probably how Hong Kong activist Joshua Wong Chi-fung perceives himself – as a champion for freedom. My perception of him is somewhat different. In my eyes, he is rather the infamous Trojan horse, aiming to destroy the city, in this case Hong Kong, from the inside. By declaring his refusal to sign the declaration of loyalty (“ Joshua Wong, other Legco hopefuls refuse to sign allegiance declaration ”, July 18), he has already revealed his intention not to play by the rules. I fear that if several Joshua Wongs get elected to the Legislative Council, the policies of Hong Kong will grind to a halt with eternal filibustering and other means of obstruction. This would be detrimental to Hong Kong. Maybe the Young Turks do not care, since they can retreat to lands of their dreams after having inflicted enough damage, but for ordinary people in Hong Kong it would be a blow. Before I can trust any of the opposition politicians, I would like to hear what their plans for the progress of Hong Kong are, rather than their endless war cry, “revolution of our times”. Bernt Eriksson Malmo, Sweden How to generate and execute a vision for Hong Kong These days, our public political discourse totally lacks vision and strategy for Hong Kong’s development. Whatever creativity exists is being channelled into negative energy and fired off between the two camps. It appears that our current political process does not allow us to break the negative cycle, and keeps us from turning our focus to how to create a better future for our broader community. So why not consider something completely different, perhaps along the following lines: create a council responsible for establishing and keeping up to date a vision and strategic development plan for Hong Kong. Hong Kong citizens who want to become members of the council would be given a test to determine if they are sufficiently qualified to sit on it. Divide the qualified people into skill groups along the lines of our functional constituencies. Select council members from each skill group through a lucky draw for a fixed term. The council generates the first draft of the vision and strategic plan, which is subsequently subject to a referendum. With a quorum of a fixed percentage of the electorate, the draft needs to capture 60 per cent of the votes cast. What choices do moderate Hong Kong voters have in September? Once the draft is approved by the Hong Kong public, the council is responsible for hiring the “C-suite” of the Hong Kong administration whose main responsibility will be the creation of an annual budget and plan in pursuit of the realisation of the vision and strategy for Hong Kong. The council approves the annual budget and plan, which includes substantial incentives for the administration to achieve agreed targets. The “C-suite” reports monthly in writing to the council, which meets the “C-suite” on a quarterly basis minimum. If the performance of the administration is considered not satisfactory, the council may terminate the services of one or more members of the “C-suite” and appoint replacements through a headhunting process. Bettering the lives of our broad community will be in focus if we shift our political process in this direction. Finn Nielsen, Discovery Bay