When on 17th. April 1980 the Union Flag was lowered for the last time over Salisbury in the last large colony of the British Empire, Southern Rhodesia, and Zimbabwe was born, many liberals and those on the left of politics in Britain, and I daresay elsewhere in the cosy world of the fluffy left, could not conceal their joy, their veritable bliss that at last Ian Smith, who had cocked a snook at successive British Governments, most seriously in their eyes having famously humiliated Harold Wilson by a succession of adroit moves, had been knocked into the cocked hat of history and replaced by their hero, Marxist former Catholic ‘Comrade’ Robert Mugabe.

Their joy was unbounded as they saw in him the harbinger of the end of Apartheid in South Africa, which, with ‘Comrade’ Bob’s felicitous victory at the polls, must surely be quailing in fear at the relentless onward march of Black Majority Rule. In the event, of course, nothing that ‘Chairman’ Bob, as be became, did ever contributed a jot to the bringing to an end of Apartheid which was rather swept away much as Communism had been swept away as an unsustainable irrelevance. Part of the tacit support for the government in Pretoria had rested on its staunch commitment to resisting the bacillus of Communism at the tip of Africa and its willingness to prevent the enemy’s ability to control the Cape Sea Lanes. Take that problem away and the legs of support collapsed pretty promptly.

Once it had gone there was no justification for maintaining a system of government that excluded the bulk of the population on the grounds of their race, so the cornerstones of Apartheid were quickly removed and with them the need to keep Mr. Mandela in prison.

Meanwhile, Chairman Bob came into power with lies and deceit on his lips and racism in his heart. When he took power, Zimbabwe was set fair to be one of the breadbaskets of Africa and the source of prodigious quantities of minerals and a spectacular third arm of wealth in its nascent tourist industry.

It has taken this egregiously evil man just twenty-seven years to reduce this fine land to a wasteland with inflation running at 4000% and more, its people reduced to pre-neolithic penury and privation and its economy utterly destroyed.

And those very same leftist and liberal politicians who wet themselves with joy at his ‘victory’? Where are they today and where is their voice? Why do you stand silent and do nothing? Are you quite unashamed of yourselves? Or are you all going to go on looking carefully at your feet and whistling the Internationale?

And as for Africa’s politicians, what can one possibly say of them, as they lionize this man, as the Telegraph reports?

President Robert Mugabe has received a hero’s welcome at the opening of an African summit, despite the turmoil at home in Zimbabwe.

As he was introduced to the Southern African Development Community gathering in the Zambian capital Lusaka, dignitaries gave him thunderous applause in contrast to polite claps for other leaders.

We should carefully note the names of these evil people and ensure that not one of them ever receives a penny more in British Taxpayer’s money. That way we can properly say we had no part in this wickedness.

As for Chairman Bob, I would not care to be his life insurance broker. For all decent men must expect that he will not die in his bed, for surely the breaking point of the peoples of Zimbabwe must be near. Surely the time when they rise up from the gutter into which they have been cast must be fast approaching.

And if, perchance he should slip away, then it is profoundly to be hoped that a prison cell awaits him for the crimes of genocide, persecution, torture and other crimes against humanity of which he is many times over guilty.