Simon Lincoln Reader, known to the BizNews community as SLR, wears many hats. A regular columnist for BizNews, Reader possesses a unique ability to merge perceptive depth and satirical wizardry in his articles. In January, Reader – a London-based technology investor – visited Cape Town, which presented the perfect opportunity for a refreshingly frank, face-to-face conversation. True to form, Reader did not hold back. Not surprisingly, the entire (rather lengthy) podcast – recorded in his garden in Cape Town – is wildly entertaining, with Reader recounting details of experiences ranging from his relation to ‘Iron Lady’ Margaret Thatcher to his involvement with the ANC many years ago. Topics like Joe Biden, Boris Johnson’s hair and wokeness, among many others, were covered and his take was both hilarious and insightful. – Nadya Swart
Simon Lincoln Reader on his relation to Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher was an extraordinary woman. The effect that she had on me, irrespective of my belief in the ANC [was that] I became immediately interested in British politics. I was very lucky to spend time with her. I read about what she had done as I grew older. At the heart of my politics is still the belief that her politics was probably the best my world will ever know. The simplest was, count your pennies and the notes will look after themselves, be responsible fiscally, and be responsible culturally. If Margaret Thatcher was the prime minister of the United Kingdom today, I do not believe we’d be having these conversations about woke shit because that’s all an import from California. She would have positioned herself as an insurmountable obstacle in the face of such an ideological creep. I think there would be nowhere near the level of tolerance in the institution. The British institutions under Margaret Thatcher were extraordinary.
On the BBC’s antipathy towards Margaret Thatcher
The BBC had a shocking antipathy towards Margaret Thatcher and it still comes out today in the ideological position the news desk takes on issues. You could even see it in things like Covid-19. They want lockdowns. They want to believe in the expert class. I don’t have a degree. I don’t have anything but I do have motivation and learn quickly. Those are the guys that Margaret Thatcher raised and that’s the profile the BBC despises. The BBC wants the subsidised class, the professors, the guys at the university in receipt of generous donations. Those are the guys they want leading the country: the technocrats.
On African success in a foreign country
I worked with a think tank in the UK. My brief with them was to show the good; that South Africans and Africans [in general] had to a large degree prospered against all other negative rhetoric about being deprived. There was a huge progression in living standards, in earning power, and I have been vindicated. The data indicated quite clearly there has been much more progress than we give it credit for. The data reveals that African kids in London are progressing much more than anyone like the [people from] the Caribbean and Pakistan. They are falling way behind. The Africans are doing enormously well. Nigeria, in particular, is among those immigrant nations. Their employment prospects have improved, their academic progress and achievements have improved. They are getting admission into universities like Oxbridge universities. It’s astonishing. A lot of it has got to do with colonialism, the legacy of colonialism and British interest in Africa. There are a lot of Kenyans in the UK. They are another group that are excelling. The lowest performing group in the UK are white working-class British children. The failed school, they get excluded. They cannot [find employment]. I’d love to see more African immigrant CEOs. I would love to see more first-generation African guys in London succeeding.
On Joe Biden
He’s got a fabulously luxurious property collection. How does a man who works on a salary in Congress build a property like that? There is an element I sympathise with, and that is the obvious decline in senility of the US president. He casts himself as a race uniter but he was one of the architects of the crime bill, which has resulted in hundreds of thousands of young black men being incarcerated for minor crimes and the prison industrial complex exploding as a result of this. He has been caught lying on multiple occasions about visiting Nelson Mandela. For any listener interested in knowing what Joe Biden thinks about black people, I suggest they go to Clarence Thomas, a black judge on the US Supreme Court. He was interrogated in the most vicious and the most dehumanising way in the early 2000s by Joe Biden himself.
On the origins of Covid-19
It is a virus and I’ve never doubted the severity of it and its impact on people’ but as a feeling and as a human instinct, Covid-19 is a demon. The origin of Covid-19 was a Wuhan lab release, financed by the US Government and a mechanism of research action. I don’t believe that it was intentionally released. You have got two choices when you’re faced with a demon. Either you start taking zinc, vitamin D, exercising, and cut down on beer. Or you make deals with the demon. Firstly, lockdown was a deal with the demon that would enrich companies like Amazon and Microsoft because you were suddenly virtual. The lockdowns benefit the guys who run these enormous corporations; they don’t benefit the frontline workers. South Africa relied upon models that were faulty and unbelievably over-exaggerated. The second part of it was to use Covid-19 as a point of virtue signalling. Forty billionaires were created as a result of Covid-19 in 2020.
Read Also:
- SLR: Neil Young’s royal self-cancellation … a long line of new woke
- SLR: Cracking stories outdo ‘wokeness’ – remembering Wilbur Smith
- SLR: Britain’s Fawlty Towers Covid-19 response
