The ANC needs to trade on its heroic past to conceal its present failings, he added.
Admittedly, there have been some serious problems of late, but past and present failings do not add up to a case against the department as such.
Still, no amount of past achievement should blind one to a writer's present failings and it has to be said that Roth's new novel is, by his standards, dismayingly poor.
The pope doesn't hit the right note on every issue, of course, and his statement – progressive though it may be – certainly doesn't absolve the Catholic church of all its past and present failings.
Since the publication of "The Tin Drum" in 1959 turned him into a household name at the age of 32, he has gone out of his way to lecture, even hector, his fellow Germans on their past and present failings.
"No amount of past achievement should blind one to a writer's present failings, and it has to be said that Roth's new novel is, by his standards, dismayingly poor," William Skidelsky said in the Observer.
Vardy's goal against Manchester United on Saturday, under the nose of the England coach, Roy Hodgson, not only set the King Power Stadium ablaze, it set in sharp relief the present failings of the man he might replace in the national team, Wayne Rooney.
There's certainly a progressive case for staying in to be made, but it will have to start with admitting the union's present failings and outlining a radical, democratic alternative.
Corbyn attended last week's PLP meeting – at which Jon Trickett, the shadow cabinet minister in charge of Labour's strategy for May's local elections, gave a presentation – but the session was broken up when MPs had to vote and the leader irritated some present by failing to return to take questions.
