Hugo Rifkind Hugo Rifkind

Shared Opinion | 19 April 2008

Britain has lost an empire and found a role: to faff on about pirates and biofuels

issue 19 April 2008

Political wisdom coming from Robert Mugabe is hard to swallow. Nonetheless, I think the leathery old butcher might be on to something. ‘Gordon Brown,’ he said last week, ‘is a tiny dot on this world.’

From some people, that might be mere insult. Yet, when foul Bob describes Gordon Brown as a dot on the face of this world, one cannot help but consider that other unexpected dot, on the face of Robert Mugabe.

Is it a moustache, do you think? I’m not sure. Ask many professed Africa experts about Robert Mugabe’s moustache, and about half of them will say, ‘He hasn’t got a moustache, are you thinking of Daniel arap Moi?’ It’s a tiny thing, nestling in the dimple of his upper lip. It can’t be a birthmark, because he didn’t have it when he was younger. I reckon he grew it in the late 1980s, when he decided to give dictatorial tyranny a proper crack.

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