Gideon Rachman's blog: My earliest political memories are of Helen Suzman, the veteran anti-apartheid MP, who died last week. I was born in London but I lived in South Africa for three years from 1967 to 1970 - between the ages of five and eight. I think it was probably possible to grow up in London completely oblivious to politics, but that wasn't really an option in South Africa. My first political memory is of a general election in apartheid South Africa - seeing posters for Suzman being nailed to trees in the rich, liberal Johannesburg constituency of Houghton that she represented.

Reading the obituaries of Suzman, I was struck both by her bravery and her wit. She was the only anti-apartheid MP for many years and she was sharp. I particularly liked her reply, when accused by the prime minister of asking parliamentary questions that embarrassed South Africa: "It's not my questions that are embarrassing. It's your answers." Suzman seemed such a patrician woman that I had half-forgotten an obvious fact - she was also Jewish.