Yesterday we launched a great new website called BusinessLIVE and redesigns for the Financial Mail and Business Day at a function at Melrose Arch. Trevor Manuel was the guest speaker. Myself, Business Day editor Tim Cohen and Financial Mail editor Rob Rose asked Manuel some questions. It was a fascinating discussion.

I asked him this: "If you had five minutes of face-time with President Zuma, what would you say to him?"

This was his answer:

Here is a (mildly edited) transcript of the answer:

I would say to him that the only thing we have - the only thing we have - that binds us together is our constitution.

Because it sets out what we must become. The preamble commits us to - among other things - raise the living standards of each citizen and to free the potential of each person. That's big!

You can't do that unless you are concentrated on what the needs of people are and whether you are actually discharging that obligation to raise the living standards of people.

You can't free the potential if you have an education system that is actually set up to fail the children of the poor. You can't do that.

Leave aside the politics of everything else, if you fail at that, you fail the constitution. The constitution is complex. It gives us other rights as part of our national identity. One of those rights is the ability to speak freely in all 11 of our official languages.

All of those things are contained in the constitution. It works because you respect it.

There are rights and obligations. And then I would say to him: 'I'm happy to take your through a lengthy discourse on where we fail our constitution.'

And if we fail our constitution we come back to that point (that Will Hutton raised about Britain) where we look at our past because that's where glory is and we are incapable of inspiring people with hope about their future.

I start there and I end with Cabral who talks about how people do fight for the things in people's heads. They fight to improve their lives and to see new opportunities for their children.

It's very basic. Everybody's like that in the world.

People have spoken, I've said - very publicly - that the ANC has now lost the urban working class. We can feel good about that, in aggregate terms we still have Qoboqobo and Comfimvaba and parts of the Vemba district and so on. We can feel good about that, but actually what matters in a country that has an economy like ours is what happens to the voice of the urban working class.

It's old in the tradition of the ANC - early relations with the ICU, Clements Kadalie. It goes back to all of those times. It goes back to the struggles of workers and if you've lost that, what do you have left?

And then I will say to him: 'If you are incapable of understanding the import of this, step aside for others who can because you are then an impediment to the values articulated in our constitution.

Hopefully (intelligence minister) David Mahlobo is listening and will take this statement and play it to the president.