Binge-watching a top-rated TV series is a sure-fire way to escape the depressing reality of SA's winter of discontent. But beyond escapism, one current series offers compelling insight into what happens to a society where trust is destroyed and truth is completely corrupted. Chernobyl is the masterful HBO-Sky series depicting the nuclear disaster at the eponymous [...]
SA’s longest-serving leader of the opposition, Sir de Villiers Graaff, had a handy solution to the numerous crises faced by his United Party. “When in doubt, Div would appoint a committee,” one of his confidantes once told me. That worked until it didn’t and the UP dissolved itself, appropriately perhaps, on a Johannesburg ice rink [...]
“Never make predictions, least of all about the future,” was the wise advice of Hollywood mogul Sam Goldwyn. The same might be said of political slogans and phrases, some of which barely survive contact with the real world. As Theresa May limps through her last days as prime minister of Great Britain, and the fight [...]
“Confidence,” opined former US Treasury secretary Larry Summers, “is the cheapest form of stimulus.” So, how confident should South Africans and foreign investors feel after Cyril Ramaphosa unveiled his slightly less gargantuan cabinet and last week’s central bank mandate debacle? An apt question is, "Who governs?", given Ace Magashule’s disastrous intervention in the realms of monetary [...]
