OUT TO LUNCH
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
It’s been a long time since I was obliged to wear a suit and tie in 37 degrees of heat but there I was last Thursday in my blue pin stripe, as a guest of the Hon John Steenhuisen, picking my way through the steel barricades on the way to parliament to hear how the ANC propose to save the country from failed nation status.
In contrast to the hysterical reports of some other news sources I don’t find it odd or in the least bit threatening that Cape Town goes into lock down on the opening of parliament although, if you’ve never visited Washington or London I suppose this might seem a bit alien to you.
Neither did I experience the “grim faced policemen” and the snarling of police Alsatians apparently witnessed by other members of the fourth estate, one of whom compared the scene to roadblocks at Gaza or Aleppo. I daresay I could write much livelier copy if I had but I can only report what I experienced and that was extremely helpful police officers (I never knew we had so many) who directed our small party of DA foot soldiers towards the parliament building by the shortest route.
Far from having to pass through a series of checkpoints as claimed by another journalist, the security in the building was fast, polite and efficient and we were never warned by these “grim faced officials” where we could walk and where we couldn’t. In retrospect I think this may have been because we were all rather smartly dressed in keeping with the solemnity of the occasion and looked nothing like journalists. If you want to be treated like a VIP then it helps to look like a VIP.