To mark the 30th anniversary of FW de Klerk’s earth-shaking speech to parliament on February 2 1990, veteran journalist Tim du Plessis sent me an inquiry. “Can you describe”, he asked, “where you were and what you felt when you heard the news?” My answer – on the one speech ever delivered in parliament which [...]
Parliament's approval of land expropriation without compensation could set SA on a slippery slope while Theresa May's Brexit nightmare continues Is SA, inexorably, on the slide-path to a destination named Venezuela or Zimbabwe? On Tuesday, this parallel was top of mind for some when parliament voted — after just 86 minutes of debate — to adopt [...]
Having ascended to the second-most-important job in politics, he should contemplate this Ratings agencies, taxpayers, investors and hard-pressed consumers will focus laser-attention on the pronouncements of new finance minister Tito Mboweni when he delivers his “maiden” mini-budget speech in parliament this afternoon. But there is nothing virginal about Mboweni’s cabinet status. He returns to the [...]
Unlikely a place as England might be for a political earthquake, it is perhaps the setting for a great unravelling In July 1961, in London's West End, a new musical play debuted to critical and commercial success. Entitled Stop the World - I Want to Get Off , it was set in a circus. Last [...]
Give the man a Bells — or should that be a cuppa tea? If our dear president drank infusions stronger than his preferred rooibos tea, I guess you would give the man a Bell‘s. Since tea was the preferred metaphor for Gwede Mantashe‘s recent attack on his predecessor, Kgalema Motlanthe, for daring to suggest that [...]
What might have happened had PW Botha not succumbed to a stroke and handed power to his successor? 4 Feb 2015 | Tony Leon | Original Publication: Rand Daily Mail CHAOS, in local politics anyway, apparently spirals downward. Channelling their "inner EFF", ANC Cape Town city councillors last week decided to mimic their national foes [...]
