A deafening silence

HOGARTH knows that it must be irksome to be hounded by the Sunday Times just because you are consorting with a man charged with being in possession of Cabinet documents on the arms deal.

All the more galling if you are the Deputy President, a man who should be talking in a sober timbre about moral regeneration from the comfort of a Chesterfield couch.

Instead, the Sunday Times is asking you why you took Schabir Shaik with you on a trip to Senegal when he is yet to defend charges that he benefited from insider knowledge on the arms deal.

Pity, that. One or two pithy quotes explaining that Shaik was merely a baggage-bearer or a shoe-polisher, and the whole thing would have been cleared up.

Our Mampara should know that sulking is beneath the high office he holds.

With acknowledgement to the Sunday Times