Would forcing CY to step down be a victory for the people of HK? Only in the same way that CY winning the CE "election" over Henry Tang was a victory for public opinion and the people of HK. Ya know, it's amazing to me that some people can actually believe that part about CY beating Tang with a straight face and not admit it was just one faction using the people to beat another faction and that the people's best interests had zero consideration and zero impact on the outcome.

There is no doubt that this mess isn't just negligence on CY's part. CY is a man whose address represents the pinnacle of colonial privilege with a guard house for a public security detail. He is a professional and been the ExCo convenor for a decade and a half. He was the Chair of the Basic Law Drafting Committee. Yet we are to believe that he was satisfied with providing an ignorant answer in ExCo to the Chief Executive and to the people of HK during a televised CE debate? Maybe if I get dragged in to court I can claim ignorance to the judge and jury and get let off with a few crocodile tears.

CY had no problems hiring men to come in and remove his illegal structures, but he was unwilling to hire someone to come in and cure his ignorance of whether he had any illegal structures. And when asked by Bowtie whether he had illegal structures at home, he did not give the answer of ignorance: "I don't know. Let me check." CY affirmed the negative: "I know I don't have any. I know the facts."

So why risk it all by stating that you know when you don't? I'd guess almost all HKers with illegal structures know they are illegal. The Kuk isn't fighting tooth-and-nail on illegal structure removal because they aren't sure if the law might negatively impact them. Even CY's biggest defenders like the Big Lychee know if their dwelling has illegal structures. Why doesn't he do something to have it removed? For the same reason CY didn't bother to say anything about his guardhouse and trellis. "The structures are there in plain sight and no one has ever said anything about them, so no one will ever say anything about them and if someone does say something, I'll deal with it then. Until then I've got more important things to deal with." And given Henry's refusal to deal with his illegal structure, it meant that even if the story escaped the spike during the campaign, CY could show he was more responsible by dealing with his problems.

But the sad truth is that it doesn't matter. Hong Kong is a colony and the Governor General sits in Sheung Wan. Even if the uproar over CY grows too loud, the Governor General will just appoint another puppet and the game will go on until 2047, when the colonial power can drop the whole charade and assume their preferred direct and absolute control.