Ten rules for MPs
TEN additional rules for MPs 1. Do not shout! – a lower-pitched voice carries better than a semi-scream, which will only overload the electronics and distort the sound.
2. Deliver a reasoned speech – a speech based on logic and factual material delivered in a rational, coherent manner, and if you quote someone be careful, Oscar Wilde must not be pronounced as in the wrestler “Wildeman van Warmbad”.
3. Make one or two good points instead of stammering away a whole book or document – and do not swear, Jiiiirrrrre! sounds terrible from the mouth of a leader and it insults.
4. Stick to the subject at hand; do not go into history lessons, especially not now that history is difficult to distinguish from fable!
5. Be decorous – that is a word from the original Latin for “right or proper” and relates to acceptable limits of appropriate social behaviour linked to etiquette and good manners. It is not good manners to scream, insult and interject.
6. Translate. Although it is a right to do so, it is ill-mannered to keep muttering in a language that is not a global language like English; if a strange language like Afrikaans, Xhosa or Zulu or whatever is used, have the courtesy to repeat your secret thoughts in English.
7. Do not joke – it may tell more about the teller than about the object of the mirth, as one lady found out. On the other hand a smile from the EFF would have gone down better!
8. Get rid of old unnecessarily restrictive laws rather than be obsessed with lawmaking that only seems to make the work of businessmen, professionals, the internet, the press and reporters, motorists and restaurants more cumbersome, less profitable and irritating to tourists.
9. Tell the truth. The truth about the weapons transaction, Nkandla, Fifa, political interference in sport and institutions will come out – the ire in the population is mounting about the ongoing skulduggery and legerdemain.
10. Put South Africa first, which means: do everything to repair the ailing economy, do not take over but co-operate and leave the mounting threat to minorities, agree on a strategy to stop vandalism, bribery, corruption and savagery that can be underwritten by all the political parties – there must be common ground somewhere.