Misery loves company, as the old saying goes. So however depressed the local weather, the stuttering economy or the winning loss of the Proteas exit makes you feel, spare a thought for Sir Kim Darroch. He enjoys the dream diplomatic posting as British ambassador to the United States. But right now, despite residing in one [...]
During an English heat wave, I recently escaped London to lose myself in the bucolic Kent countryside near the picturesque town of Westerham. I was one of many Winston Churchill latter-day pilgrims on a visit to his country home at Chartwell. This was where he lived or visited for more than 40 years from 1922 until [...]
“Imagine,” a Western diplomat from a leading investor nation in SA told me recently, “If we had said during the struggle for democracy here: ‘It’s not our business’.” “And if we had added to this that the future of South Africa cannot be determined by outsiders, least of all by those from the West. “There [...]
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 [...]
Some years back, one of his harassed employees said of publicity -hungry Rudy Guiliani -then Mayor of the Big Apple – ‘the most dangerous place to stand in New York City is between Rudy and a microphone’. This week I discovered the truth: the most dangerous place to stand in New York City is basically [...]
The late US Senator John McCain reinforced his best self against the worst instincts of his own supporters Country First was the inspiring slogan that headlined Senator John McCain’s doomed 2008 campaign for the US presidency. I was resident in Washington DC during the last stretch of that historic election, which the Republican lost handily [...]
“Resilience!”. That’s what two business mavens advised me was the secret sauce which allows South Africa to power on. Even with blackouts from Eskom and other daily travails from our failing state. “Africa’s grocer” as resilient Shoprite Checkers is dubbed displayed some of this sauce, not on its aisles, but in its annual results published [...]
When the economy is spluttering at 1% growth it is time to put on the hair shirt, not to go on a drinking binge Visionary leadership is much commented on these days precisely because of its absence. It has almost disappeared from public life and politics, here and everywhere. When you think of Winston Churchill [...]
Two versions of her speech at Gibs, in text and orally, show little regard for dire state of public accounts. Presidential hopeful Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma’s recent speech at a high citadel of capitalism — the Gordon Institute for Business Science — caused much controversy. In her actual remarks Dlamini-Zuma bemoaned the "dissonance" between the government and [...]
Our security services and minister are fast friends with their Russian counterparts. Just on Monday the two countries signed a co-operation agreement on "cyber security" The Sherlock Holmes story The Silver Blaze gave us the famous tagline of "the curious incident of the dog in the night". The curiosity in that tale of the kidnapping [...]
