Peter Hain on Mandela, Ramaphosa and white South Africans

It’s always special to visit with Peter Hain, the anti-apartheid icon who had a highly successful half century in British politics. Last time I watched him deliver a killer speech in the House of Lords which smashed any hopes the Guptas had of slinking away into the shadows. This time he hosted me in Royal Gallery, a grand room through which Elizabeth the Second passes en route to her official throne where she delivers the annual Queen’s Speech, the official opening of the British Parliament. Peter Hain, the boy from Pretoria, still can’t quite believe he’s a fully-fledged member of the historic House of Lords… Our conversation soon moved across Peter Hain’s superb book on his friend, South African leadership icon Nelson Mandela. I loved this punchy, well-written 196 pages on the man who changed his nation’s destiny. But with a veritable library of books on Madiba already available, I asked why Hain believed another was necessary, sparking a fascinating discourse on the concept of how best each of us can make a contribution to the society we serve.