TOM EATON | Boris’s pants are on fire. Cyril could do worse than take a leaf out his playbook

Every so often a certain sort of South African insists that we should take our lead from the Old Country, Mother Blighty, and do things the pukka British way down here.

It’s a hangover 200 years in the making, a relic of empire beloved by those who don’t yet understand that the Great Britain of their nostalgic fantasies has shrivelled into self-parody. Brits who voted “leave” were promised Spitfires barrel-rolling over the White Cliffs of Dover. Instead they got lickspittles hovering over the White Oaf of Downing Street.

Yes, the UK is hardly a place most want to emulate right now, least of all the ANC, which would rather die than take advice from a former coloniser. Weapons, yes. Racially divisive propaganda campaigns, absolutely. But advice? Never!

Still, I would urge Cyril Ramaphosa and his ship of fools to keep an open mind and give serious thought to adopting the new political strategy debuted by Boris Johnson this week: lying like a six-year-old.

Johnson, you might have seen while flipping through the cartoon channels, has been under fire for his increasingly absurd tangle of lies about attending a Downing Street garden party while the rest of the UK was under heavy lockdown.

I would urge Cyril Ramaphosa and his ship of fools to keep an open mind and give serious thought to adopting the new political strategy debuted by Boris Johnson this week.

So far his obfuscations and weaseling have been pretty familiar to those of us who follow ANC politics: there was no party; if there was a party, he wasn’t there; if he was there, and if there was a party, then he didn’t know it was a party, because if it had been a party he would have gone home to Number 10, which is his home, which is where the party happened, if it was indeed a party, and he was indeed there.

On Tuesday, however, he upped his game spectacularly, explaining that yes, there was a party, and he was probably at it, if all those witnesses are to be believed, but nobody told him it was wrong.

“I’m saying categorically that nobody told me, nobody said this was something that was against the rules,” said Johnson of a social gathering that took place as he and his own government were enforcing a nationwide ban on gatherings of more than two people outdoors.

As I said, this is next-level stuff, and Ramaphosa could do worse than try it on for size. Lord knows, he’s tried everything else ...

“What’s that you say? I misled the Zondo Commission about the influence of the Cadre Deployment Committee in appointed judges? Ah, well, you see, I, er — ”

[Glances down at British Dummies For Dummies open on his iPad]

“I’m saying categorically that nobody told me, nobody said that misleading judge Zondo was wrong, and I can certainly say, absolutely categorically, that nobody told me that it was wrong for a party to appoint judges in a constitutional democracy, if that is, indeed, what this country is, though I’m not entirely sure because nobody has told me anything, ever, on any topic whatsoever. I thank you.”