inside politics

From time to time Inside Politics will post articles from guest writers, as well as important insight and analysis from its own contributors. You will be able to find the most important of these here, for ease of reference.

Riah Phiyega

• Phiyega’s gallery of gobbledegook

The Nature of Liberalism

• The liberal individual, group identity and human solidarity
• The nature of good leadership
• Excellence as an antidote
• What constitutes good argument
• Accountability, explanation and consequence
• Rationality: Our guide through the dark
• An essay on mediocrity
• Politics and innovation
• Sound judgement is a weapon against moralising
• Some thoughts on the idea of respect
• History is about questions; propaganda, answers
• Secrecy: The drug you slowly become addicted to
• Why difference is important
• On heroes and villians
• Freedom cannot ever be completely controlled
• Appearance and reality: Liberal values in democratic SA
• A commitment to excellence
• How loyalty is used and abused
• Consultation requires an open mind
• The relationship between hope and time
• An erosion of the DA’s liberal values?
  
• An erosion of the DA’s liberal values 2?
• Culture, culture everywhere and not a drop to drink
• The DA’s illiberal response to Lulu Xingwana

By the Numbers

• The ANC’s top ten all-time most disturbing quotes
• The ANC’s top 20 violent fights
• 36 Quotes from Jacob Zuma
• 7 of the worst: How the ANC rewards corruption
• The ANC’s top ten treasonous people
• 10 steps to avoid moralising
• The ten commandments according to Jacob Zuma
• Jacob Zuma’s top ten most disturbing cultural ideas

The Battle of Ideas

• The mischievous deviousness of Jeremy Cronin
• The ANC and the history of Mao’s infamous quote
• The ANC’s intolerant attitude to tolerance
• Is the ANC its own harshest critic?
• How parliament misunderstands accountability
• Understanding a vote-winning brand
• The emperor has no clothes
• Small, smaller, smallest: The decline of SA’s minority parties
• Trevor Manuel and ghost between the lines
• Mbeki as Jekyll and Hyde
• The HSF: Losing Focus
• Zuma’s speech-making: Grasping in the dark
• Fresh off Twitter: How the ANC in eThekwini abuse public money
• Fresh off Twitter – Round 2: The ANC again abuses power in eThekwini
• The Ubuntu cuttlefish
• The ANC and John Dugard: Feeding the hand it bites
• Blade, the SACP and the idea of respect
• Biko’s archetype: Are you a ‘real black’?
• Burning books: The African way
• Marius Fransman’s political dictionary

Contentious Issues

• Affrimative Action and academic appointments
• UCT Admissions: The DASO alternative
• What is pornography?
• Zuma’s Zapiro investment strategy

ANC Governance

• Bitou at the brink
• Mangaung: the ANC’s shame
• How Buffalo City was brought to its knees
• Johannesburg’s pothole misery
• How much government spends on entertainment
• Why ANC provincial departments have contempt for you
• 1 in 3 calls to SAPS police stations go unanswered
• Like trying to sew the head back onto a chicken
• How SADTU and the SACE have damaged accountability is SA education

DA Governance

• How Midvaal delivers more to the poor
  
• How the Western Cape takes corruption seriously
• Was Shiceka fired for promoting the DA?
• How the WC Office of the Premier scored in the PSC report

The Media

• Learning the hard way
• The media’s stony silence on anti-DA racism
• An analysis of the Press Ombudsman’s rulings
• The Sowetan, Zille and Zuma: A critique
• On moral outrage and bad journalism
• The many-tentacled cash cow and other mangled metaphors
• The sad decline of the Sunday Times I
• The sad decline of the Sunday Times II
• SA Journalism: Prizes for everyone
• Zille, the Guptas and the Weekend Argus’s shoddy journalism
• The New Age and the commercialisation of accountability

Political Commentators

• How personal bias corrupts ‘expert’ opinion
• Who critiques the critics?
• How political correctness makes for bad analysis
• The logical errors of Pierre de Vos
• The cheap moralising of Eusebius McKaiser
• Journalism 101: 1st check facts; 2nd write opinion

Sport

• Zero worship
• Cricket SA: The long shadow of Thabo Mbeki
• Why has CT hosted Bafana Bafana just 4 times in 19 years?
• Why Stormers rugby supporters are statistically the best
• Cricket SA: The long shadow of Thabo Mbeki

Retrospectives

• Driving Ms Mbete Part 1
• Driving Ms Mbete Part 2
• Mbeki’s 1994 TV debate nightmare
• The other election
• 187 Votes: how Julius Malema was elected
• Will the ANCWL back Jacob Zuma at Magaung?
• Johannesburg and nationalism: 1890 vs 2012

The Spear

• The painting of president Zuma
• The Jacob Zuma painting and the idea of respect
• The painting, the institution and the individual
• Albie Sachs on South African art in 2000
• The Spear and the silence of the NAC
• Why The Spear is staying up on Inside Politics
• FPB: Inside Politics declines to censor The Spear
• What have we learnt since ‘The Spear’?

The Billion Rand President

• How much Jacob Zuma costs the taxpayer
• Facts and Figures
• Update – R8.1m added in Ferry Flights
• A R1m day in the life of President Zuma
• Graphic: Breakdown by category
• Graphic: Breakdown by time
• Graphic: Breakdown by relative cost
• Graphics: A R1m day in the life of President Zuma
• Video: Planes, Gravy Trains and Automobiles