Carrie Lam needs to face the public for her policy address – a pre-recorded message will do nothing for her government’s standing
- The government’s missteps didn’t start with the extradition bill – top officials’ actions have consistently lacked accountability
- No one expects the policy address to end her troubles, but Lam’s reliance on pre-recorded messages won’t help her battered image
Chief Executive Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor and her government have failed to own up to their epic incompetence in creating the biggest political disaster Hong Kong has ever faced, with aftershocks tearing apart the city’s social fabric and shaking our economic foundations.
And, as long as they don’t take responsibility, petrol bombs, tear gas and the lynching of people with opposing political views are going to remain everyday occurrences.
It’s certainly very distressing to watch Lam in her pre-recorded videos. Even more distressing is to see her minsters, sporting their grim Halloween haunted house look, standing alongside her like life-size cardboard cutouts.
Former Legislative Council president Jasper Tsang Yok-sing agreed that the council rules do not require the policy address to be delivered in person. He also didn’t even try to sugarcoat the harsh truth about whether the move would harm the government’s authority, asking “Is there any authority left?”
Seeing government officials scrambling, with less than a week to go, for contingency plans for the policy address just confirms how useless it is.
