The late US Secretary of State, General Colin Powell, popularised the "Pottery Barn rule" - named after the American chain store, as a guide to political consequences for strategic decisions, both taken and avoided. It went along the lines of "if you break it, you fix it; if you break it, you own it". This [...]
In 1908, Winston Churchill was first appointed to the British cabinet. He would go on to star at the centre of power, on and off, for another 50 years. Later, recalling his first summons to high office by Prime Minister HH Asquith, he wrote: "When offering me Cabinet office in his government in 1908, he [...]
Was it the heat in Thabazimbi on Sunday or, perhaps, he was stung when his party provincial secretary in KwaZulu-Natal labelled him "weak"? Whatever the cause, by the usual "aural valium" standard of many of Cyril Ramaphosa's remarks, his attack on the process which led to a settlement of the contentious Basic Education Laws Amendment [...]
