PPE, Oxford vs PPE, Oxford

From Jeff Ooi's Screenshots:

"It's like God-send, blogger Tony Pua looked set for a round free publicity he needn't pay to help him launch his political career.

Yesterday, Utusan Malaysia reported that the Son-in-Law had demanded a public apology from DAP and Pua, who is now economic adviser to DAP secretary-general Lim Guan Eng,for saying that the civil service is the dumping ground for unemployed Malays.

When Pua refused, the Son-in-Law pumped up his pressure again yesterday, asking the former to retract his statement. And the echo chamber rattled the good old way it used to be, where rationale and intellectual debate gave way to emotions -- here, and here. The contra voices came from Shamsul Amree Baharuddin of Alam Tamadun Melayu (Atma) UKM and PAS sec-gen Kamaruddin Jaafar.

Backgrounder
May 23 after the BN Government announced the pay rise for the public servants backdropped against the imminent general election, Pua claimed that the government sector is a dumping ground for bumiputera graduates who failed to obtain jobs in the private sector.

He said this not only results in a low quality labour force in the civil service but also increases the government's responsibility. Quote from Malaysiakini:
According to Pua, the rising number of civil servants since 1990 especially under the current prime minister signals the failure of former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad's privatisation programme.

He said that in 1990, the government had 773,997 employees; in 2000, the numbers increased to a total of 894,788 – a 15.6 percent increase and since then, the numbers have increased to an additional 210,000 – resulting a 23.5 percent jump in a time frame of only six years.

Mahathir's privatisation policies which started 20 years ago were meant to cut the number of civil servants by 500,000 to reduce the government's expenditure.
Subsequently, Utusan lent the Son-in-Law the platform to demand DAP and Pua to apologise to the whole civil service as they have continuously contributed to the growth of the nation .

The Son-in-Law was quoted as saying that many of the public servants "had voluntarily foregone golden opportunities in the private sector to serve the country".

Pua, on the other hand, claimed that his statement was "taken out of context". He explained that he was merely "questioning the government's policies" and that his statements "were not meant to insult civil servants".

Pua told Screenshots that he will hold a press conference at 10.30am at the DAP HQ today to clear the air over this matter.

We were told, to honour the Right of Reply, DAP has booked a hall for the Son-in-Law to attend a friendly and intellectual debate on the issue next week.

Both Pua and the Son-in-Law were Oxford graduates with a bachelor's degree in PPE Philosophy, Politics and Economics)."

Interesting debates are here again. But watch out for mainstream media bias.