Steven Friedman

IF political theatre is your thing, you need to stick to the script.

THERE are times when national alarm at something which is going badly wrong may show that things are really getting better. Now may be one of them.

FOR the leader of the Democratic Alliance, ‘merit appointment’ is hiring people who claim that ‘Bantu people, much like Arabs, are not democratic people’ and question whether protestors really were murdered by police at Sharpeville in 1960.

TWO myths have been exploded by the absence of load shedding for around five months. This should change the national debate but probably will not.

SHOULD we worry that ‘political news’ in this country is little more than what reporters read on their phones and tablets?

SHOULD we worry that ‘political news’ in this country is little more than what reporters read on their phones and tablets?

NELSON Mandela insisted that people had to be taught to hate. He was right. And those who teach them are often quick to complain at the products of their teaching.

DOES the coalition government mean that the country is in for five years of business-friendly policy which will help the few to prosper while the many are left behind?

IF we want to understand the new government, we will need to look at what politicians do, not what they say – or what they want us to think.

IF what is left of democracy in the United States goes, will that threaten political freedom here and around the world? Probably not. It might even do the opposite.