DUBLIN â Lost Boys of Bird Island co-author Chris Steyn has been under fire since publishing her explosive book. This week, Steyn was driven to take a polygraph test to defend herself from accusations that she fabricated the story. The furor is reminiscent of the anger surrounding Pieter-Louis Myburgh’s Gangster State – those named in Myburghâs book and their supporters have responded with similar anger. But the work of exposing wrongdoing needs to be done, no matter how many feathers are ruffled. In this weekâs show, Alec Hogg talks about why he thinks Steyn is getting such pushback. Alec and I talk about tariffs in South Africa and the UK, and how they may be causing a lot of unintended consequences. Alec also shares the uplifting story of Lincoln City, a UK football club on the rise thanks to South African investors. – Felicity Duncan
Hello and welcome to this week’s episode of The Editor’s Desk here on Biznews Radio. I’m Felicity Duncan. And with me on the line is Alec Hogg. Alec, we are doing this a little late. We usually chat on a Saturday and today is Sunday, but the reason is something quite exciting. You spent the day yesterday exploring the really fascinating tale of a football club known as Lincoln City. Do you want to tell us a bit about that?
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Itâs an extraordinary story, Felicity. Itâs four hours from London to Lincoln so we decided to come by Cambridge, stayed over in and Cambridge and I went through yesterday morning and the reason why Lincoln City is kind of in the forefront of my focus at the moment is because it is a football club that is more than 100 years old,(or control was home bought of it) by a group of South African guys use are well known in the Financial Services community from Peregrine. Shaun Melnick, who is the founder of Peregrine, told me about the story about two or three years ago and Iâve been following them quite close. The man behind it is Clive Nates. He is a hedge fund manager who retired a little while ago. He is with Peregrine Capital and Clive had always wanted to have a share in an English football club. He found out that Lincoln City, which had once been second-division side had fallen all the way down into non-league, so it had been outside of the four major leagues in England.
They were in a bit of trouble with their bankers. The reason why he got involved was he thought âhereâs maybe an opportunity for him to be able to engage or to help them out and just see where it went from. And it has been a fairy tale story because he got involved in the first place. Clive put a bit a bit of his money in. Then he brought Sean Melnick (his friend) along. Then he brought Mendelowitz (another friend) along and then Greg Levine who is with Vitality over here â one of the top guys there â part of Discovery. Theyâve also brought in other South Africans to fund or to give the club the money the reason theyâve been happy to put money into it is because this club, which was down in the second half of this non-league area (and it was heading to obscurity) when Clive came along⌠The first thing he did when he was invited onto the board was to help them to find a new manager.
Now, in football itâs a lot like business. If youâve got the right leadership, it can make a massive difference. They got these brothers â the only brothers who are managing a football club, well certainly, in the top leagues in England â and Danny and Nicky Cowley from Essex, which is two or three hours away by car â they appointed them because they were young guys but theyâd had quite a nice record. In the first season, they won the non-League league, if you like but more than that, they because the first Non-League club in 103 years to make it into the last eight of the FA Cup, which everybody around the world knows is a very famous competition in England. From there, they moved the following year into what is called League 2 and they finished about mid-table and then this year, theyâre winning League 2 by 10 points and yesterday was a very big day because they were promoted.
An amazing story and itâs always nice to hear a South African angle on something like that really going in and making a difference for a team that Iâm sure is very important to the local people.
It is. As I say, when Clive first got involved, theyâd get 50 people at a game, and now itâs quite a nice stadium. It holds 10,000 people but because the club had fallen into such hard times, nobody was really bothered anymore. Yesterday, they were fully sold and in fact, all their games to the end of the season have been sold out so itâs almost like the community. I feel often, as journalist, we spend too much time in our offices but when we go out there and go and have a look at whatâs happening on the ground, you get a different complexion of things.
Clive: hereâs a hedge fund manager from Johannesburg who got himself involved in football in England. Where he walks around, people stop him and ask him for his autograph. The fansâŚitâs just this extraordinary story that you have a South African connection now with a football club in middle England and it really is in just about the middle of the whole of England where a whole town has been transformed and is obsessed now about its team, which is a winning team. Last year, they won the Chequer Trade trophy, which is a knockout cup for all the clubs in League 1 and League 2. Now remember, they were only in League 2 â kind of in the middle area. They bear everybody else there to win that cup at Wembley in front of 30,000 fans from a town of 90,000 people. So, you could imagine this is just an extraordinary story and one that we should keep watching and I guess, as South Africans â knowing the connection â watching Lincoln City is now going to be something that Iâll at least be looking for the results every week.
A very cheerful story and itâs nice to hear something so uplifting. On obviously a slightly more negative tone, I wanted to pick up a little bit on whatâs been happening with Chris Steyn.
This week, Chris underwent a polygraph test, trying to defend herself against claims that the book âThe Lost Boysâ was fabricated and that there was journalistic malpracticeâŚthat thereâs no evidence. Sheâs just being hammered by people saying that this is not a true story and she eventually resorted to a polygraph test and I think itâs a fairly sad and strange story.
Yes, I know Chris well. I worked with her for a couple of years. Sheâs a complete thoroughbred and sheâs not the kind of person who would go off at a tangent. I know with the story that interviewed more than 25 people. Itâs something sheâs been working on for 30 years. She was pulled into the book quite by accident. The publishers had a policeman who had done the investigation who almost wanted to get everything off his chest â a guy called Mark Minnie – and she was asked to come in and initially, to write the foreword but after while she realized that she had also investigated the story, so she became the co-author and itâs very sad to me that people who should know better have been attacking her. I say this because we, sitting on the outside, have evidence/corroborates what sheâs been talking – what she’s been writing.
So, you have these worthies who are saying that sheâs made it up out of thin air and yet, we know that it isnât so. The other thing that we know as well is that there have been pretty some heavy, insightful, investigations into her â into Chris herself â and this polygraph test that she took was as a consequence of the community â mainly the Afrikaner community â who donât agree that anything like this happened⌠that the paedophilia, which she writes about there at Bird Island, was a figment of her imagination. So, the head of the polygraph association globally, was in South Africa recently â heâs from the United States – and somebody who I know, put the two of them in touch. Chris said, âAbsolutelyâ. She would love to do this polygraph test and did it, and came through it with flying colours and we published that on Biznews.
Now, we donât usually do this kind of thing where we get into somebody elseâs fight but in this case, I just feel that itâs appalling the way that Chris Steyn has been treated in the mass media and indeed, her professional integrity is at stake so someone that I know as well I do⌠And of course, we have corroborating evidence as well, which will come out in the fullness of time but as we know, the wheels of justice grind slowly. So, we decided to publish her full polygraph test this week, just to support her because⌠Do you know what I find, Felicity? I saw this with Barry Sergeant â our former colleague who passed on. Barry used to put himself out there day after day after day. Itâs almost like he went into battle for the sake of the world or for the sake of society and often, he would get blows that were from vested interests who just didnât want Barry to be saying/exposing was he was exposing.
Chris is a bit like that as well. She has nothing to gain. When you write a book (believe me, Iâve done a couple myself), itâs not a financial proposition. Sheâs done it because she is that way. Sheâs built that way. Sheâs built like a Barry Sergeant. She just feels that the truth must come out in societyâs interest. And now, to have her attacked from people who actually should know better is quite appalling.
Yeah. Itâs interesting because to me, thereâs such a strong parallel with whatâs been happening around âGangster State,â where people have beenâŚthatâs taking aim a different community in South Africa and people are responding in a very similar way, right? They are attacking the book. Theyâre attacking the journalist. They just donât want to hear the story and itâs really interesting to me that Lost Boys is getting a sort of similar reception from the community â I donât want to say targeted â but the community that itâs of interest to. Weâre just seeing people react that way when they feel that theyâre under threat and itâs not⌠Everyone is of course, very rightly angry about how âGangster Stateâ is being received, but itâs interesting to me that, really, the reception to âLost Boysâ has been very similar.
And I wonder why. Perhaps itâs different communities. Perhaps â I donât want to say it â but perhaps, the one is a boy and the other one is a girl. I donât know if thereâs inherent⌠Is Chris Steyn not good enough to get it right? Well, Iâve worked with her and she is. Sheâs better than good enough. I donât know where all of this comes from but what I can say is that the beginning of wisdom is that we realise we donât know what we donât know. And in this case, if somebody has spent 30 years on a particular story, sheâs knows a hell of a lot more than those who are coming in from the outside and being influenced by perhaps people who have vested interests in some way. I think the best thing in a case like this is to just say, âWe trust the publishers have gone through their due diligences in both Gangster State with Pieter-Louis Myburgh and with Chris Steyn with Lost Boys and just know that they have a huge amount at risk if they havenât got their facts correct.
I would like to assume that the facts are correct in both cases. In Chrisâ case, I know her so wellâŚto know that she wouldnât just go off on a tangent and invent things. She just isnât made that way. She isnât built that way. It will be interesting see as this all comes out in the fullness of time â on both books â where it all ends up. We know that the contribution from the media and from people who wrote books have been uncovering a lot of the stuff that happened during the bad period of time in South Arica, have made a huge contribution in South Africa. Without their efforts, their sacrifice, and their selflessness â because this does come with a huge sacrifice. When youâre exposing the truth, there are plenty of antibodies that are kicking back against you. But my sense is to let the publicâŚjust give them the benefit of the doubt. If those who are being attacked in the book are that upset about it, sue them.
Thatâs what the whole worldâs about. Thereâs a legal system there. If somebody comes and defames you, sue them and let it all come out in court because there, you get the opportunity to put your side of the story (if you have a side of the story) in this case.
Absolutely, and letting either the courts or the broader legal process address these things â I think youâre right â is the way to go. Really, nothing but respect for people who are willing to put themselves out there the way that Chris has and that Myburgh has. Youâre right. We should basically just be grateful as South Africans, that people are willing to do that work.
Now, something that has not inspired you with gratitude as a South African, is your attempt/potential attempt to bring your car back to South Africa. Do you want to tell us about it? Itâs been so interesting to hear about what youâve been going through as you try to move back. Not only the bureaucracy, but what it tells us about the broader world and the story with your car is one of those things thatâs quite instructive.
We came to the UK for a year, if you recall, in 2016. Just after arriving here, we realised you need a car. We thought we may be able to get away with it â but not â so we bought a car. Itâs just a modest vehicle. Weâve now had it for three years, looked after it well and my thought was âwell, instead of losing 50% of the value of what we paid for it, letâs bring it homeâ. It doesnât cost that much more to take a 40-ft container than a 20-ft container so weâve made all the plans and everything and the removals company said they didnât think it was a problem. Until I read the fine print, which says (now remember, weâve been here three years so the car has now been owned for more than a year so everythingâs happy from that point of view). The South African authorities say that unless you can convince them that you left the country with no intention of returning, you canât bring a car back as a returning citizen, which is a very interesting state of affairs.
Or, you can bring it back, but then you pay duty of 65% on an inflated value as well. Your market value is probably 20% below the book value that they talk about. So, I donât know what the inflated value is but Iâve been warned that it is an inflated value over the book value, so I guess it could even be a valuation thatâs made in South Africa. Now, I can understand why the customs officials do this because people â South Africans â could game the system by coming over for a year, buying a Lamborghini and bringing that back into the country and saying âwell, theyâve had that for a year, so they should be allowed toâ. However, there does seem to be a little bit of a sledgehammer squashing a flea here because this is a very modest vehicle but it does mean now that weâre going to have to leave it over here in the UK rather than bringing it home where it could be quite a niceâŚ
Itâs a Peugeot. It will keep going for another five or 10 years, but it is an interesting point in that 65% duty tells me what the South African Motor industryâŚhow that is being protected and subsidised. Itâs always these unintended consequences. The idea in South Africa is âwell, letâs have a motor industry and letâs subsidise them and look after themâ because they employ people, but at what cost? If itâs a 65% duty that we are paying on imported vehicles to keep a motor industry going then surely, thatâs raising the entire stock of motor vehicle production. And we do know that South African cars are more expensive to buy new than elsewhere. So, this motor industry development program is something that the old apartheid government began, the ANC or the Democratic Government continued with but it is something that I donâtâ know if we really looked at the figured in a lot of detail whether we would in fact say that this is the best thing for the country.
All I know is that bringing a car back to South Africa as a returning citizen is a no-go unless you can convince the customs authorities (which is kind of impossible) that you never intended coming back in the first place. So, itâs been an interesting practical impact.
These tariffs⌠People seem to have a different mental category for tariffs, right? Youâve seen it in the US. Theyâre applying tariffs on all kinds of things and a lot of people are like âyeah, put those tariffs on. Weâre going to get the Chinese!â But thatâs not actually how tariffs work. Tariffs are a form of tax, just like income tax, just like sales tax, and just like VAT. And the person who pays the tax is the consumer. The Chinese are not paying the tariffs that are on the products that they are sending to the United States. Americans are paying those tariffs. I saw a great piece, trying to work out what the impact was â the net impact of this â because on the one hand, it could be good if people are paying these tariffs. That could be positive because it would mean more tax revenue that gets paid that can go into schools etc.
What really ends up happening â and Iâm using the example of the new tariffs on Chinese-made goods in the US â all that really happens is that the production moves to different jurisdictions that probably have higher costs than they would have had in China, so consumers end up paying more but theyâre not paying more specifically on the tax.
So, they just have this sort of perverse incentive and it must be a similar story in South Africa as you say. We have enormous transit problems in the country. People really struggle to get from A to B. Thereâs no decent public transport. We should rather say there are very small beginnings of public transport and if weâre paying these inflated prices for vehicles, youâre just kind of keeping them out of more hands that they could otherwise be in and just further making it more difficult for people who are already getting up at 4am to try and make their commute. Of course, also just levying this gigantic tax on the rest of the countryâŚ
People have a bit of magical thinking about trade stuff. They donât really think realistically about how it actually works. I think tariffs are such a good example of this because thereâs always a big constituency in favour of tariffs, but no-one wants to pay taxes. But of course, tariffs are taxes so itâs a bit nuts really, for people to feel that way.
Well, when we were talking off-air, I loved your explanation of this fallacy that exists in the UK where the end of Brexit is going to mean cheap food because the UK will no longer then be forced to buy food from Europe and it can go anywhere in the world and buy food because there are obviously tariffs on agriculture but thereâs another side to that story.
Absolutely. I think itâs true, if the UK does say, for example, hypothetically, post-Brexit, remove all agriculture tariffs, they will completely be flooded with cheap. Thereâs no doubt of that. But the question then becomes, well, is this the food they want? The biggest agricultural producer in the world is the United States and the US has been having lots of fights with Europe for many years about protection of the agricultural markets, but a lot of the protection is actually around health and safety practices that are allowable in the US that the EU rejects. For example, all the chicken in the US gets washed with chlorine, with a bleach solution. The idea there is that theyâre going to get the salmonella off it. They bleach out all the chicken after itâs been cut into portion and in many cases. theyâll recolour it because obviously, if you put bleach on something, itâs going to remove the colour.
Now. the Americans say this is completely fine because it kills salmonella, but the EU has rejected this bleach wash that they do with the chicken. They donât want bleached chicken and the UK has itselfâŚâŚmany people also donât want that kind of chicken. Thatâs just the chicken example, of course. There are many other things â different rules around what hormones you can put into animals. All sorts of different things from farm to fork: thereâs a totally different food system in the US and the American food system produces extremely cheap food in very large amounts. Thatâs why agricultural products are among the biggest categories of US exports. But, are the UK going to want cheap food thatâs prepared in ways that they might be concerned about, for example, having this bleach wash.
Now, Iâm not making a statement about whether thatâs safe or not. Iâm just saying, you may be paying in other ways for very cheap food. And then, of course, you have to ask, is the idea that Britain will just be completely reliant on food imports and wonât have a domestic agricultural sector or are they going to keep subsidising that sector? Itâs a very complicated thing and I think none of these decisions around trade are simple and people try to make them simple.
Yeah, just to close off with on that front; the next Big Tobacco knows how⌠Well, we know whatâs happened with Big Tobacco and we now see that thatâs going to start with Big Farmer and Big Food because the research processes as weâre seeing in California with the court cases around roundup, the research processes are not entirely accurate, fair, and true. So, if you can prove that, that somebody somewhere has turned a blind eye, allowed, or has listened to research that is perhaps not 100% accurateâŚ. Well, how does that all unwind? In the same way as in the 1950âs, it was supposed to be very good for you to smoke cigarettes and all the big actors would endorse that in movies and in adverts. Today, weâre horrified by that possibility. Will we turn around in 10/15 yearsâ time and say âit was a similar thing with the foodâ?
