2015-05-19  You may marry anyone .....but

On the MTR recently I saw a government advertisement for the 2017 proposal: "You can vote to elect the Chief Executive. There's no reason to take it away." Maybe this makes sense in Chinese, but the English is very clumsy. What does "it" mean?

In a case like the above, "it" usually refers to a previous noun. So what the advertisement says is "there's no reason to take the Chief Executive away". Bad English. And bad manners, referring to the CE as "it"!

2017 advertisements are now everywhere, and people are being badgered into signing their support for the proposal. Stories have emerged of employers even forcing their employees to sign.

The 2017 proposal is like a father saying to his sons and daughters "You are completely free to marry anyone you like....but you must chose one of the three names I propose", and then harassing his children to sign a petition in support of his proposal!