Good for Zola Skweyiya, minister of social development, who followed the lead of his new boss and put ANCYL motormouth Julius Malema in his place this weekend.

Good for Zola Skweyiya, minister of social development, who followed the lead of his new boss and put ANCYL motormouth Julius Malema in his place this weekend.

Long a voice of the left in Mbeki's cabinet, the old campaigner rounded on his nominal ally and slammed the Youth League leader as "an embarrassment to the party".

Skweyiyaya's new boss, President Kgalema Motlanthe, had in the past also told Malema to watch his tongue.

But Skweyiya pulled no punches this weekend.

He said the self-described kingmaker had overstepped the mark with his unrestrained ridiculing of thenpresident Thabo Mbeki.

The party had to bring this unmannered lout into line, the doughty member of the ANC's national executive committee opined. And he noted that Africans are taught to respect their elders.

So why has the ANC taken so long to notice that Jacob Zuma's loudest supporter talks like a thug and tarnishes us all with his mindless drivel?

We can only hope that someone in authority pulls the twit aside and gives him a private lecture in Politics 101, basic African values, and nursery school-level manners. Impress on him this is a civilised society, so he will escape the violence he's promised his foes.