If a Government doesn't have a direct popular mandate, it tends to spend a lot of its time worrying about its image with the public, at least here in HK. That's because if you rule without the consent of the governed you're not going to be effective. So for example this week's Hong Kong budget again took the whimpy approach to a potential Goods and Sales Tax, by suggesting a study. Any fan of Yes Minister knows this is an effective way of postponing what you don't want to do. But Henry Tang has gone one better, saying he "promised that the tax would not be implemented if the people were opposed to it."

Hands up who wants a new tax? No one. OK, so let's not do it. We'll just keep running deficits and relying on 1/3 of the working population, some company tax and more property sales. It's worked well so far. Except for the big deficits.