Mr Stewart
stewort
HOUSING
RESTRICTED
Reference.....
IN
REQ. plyn.
18 FEB 1977
Jelle
HKK 360/1
DH- to iss
1. Mr Lightbody begins his letter of 10 February to you by saying that he has recently come across a good example of the tactics used by Mrs Elliott (and Miss Chan) to discredit_the Housing Authorities rent policies and to accuse the Hong Kong Government generally of callousness. I would not necessarily wish to dispute Mr Lighbody's description of Mrs Elliott's tactics but I can find little evidence in the enclosures to Mr Lighbody's letter of her having behaved in this way in connection with the case of Mr Poon Tim-Nin and his rent.
Mrs Elliott is mentioned only once, in the presss report, as having offered to lend money to Mr Poon Tim-Nin and not otherwise to have been involved in his case. In the circumstances, her gesture was evidently misguided but it seems hard of Mr Lighbody to cite Mrs Elliott's action as aimed at discrediting the Housing authority, etc. By chance, there is an interesting pen- portrait of Mrs Elliott in the latest issue of "MOOD" (folio 3 on folder 126). This suggests, as we would expect, that the low income groups see her as their friend and the higher income groups as a disruptive influence.
2. I attach a draft letter in reply to Mr Lighbody's which acknowledges that Mr Poon Tim-Nin's case was actually rather different from that reported in the press but declines to accept Mr Lighbody's assessment of Mrs Elliott's behaviour in this particular instance.
GODE 18 -77
*
16 February 1977
100
D. Flaill
D F MILTON