Rowan Williams preached a sermon yesterday in Harare and in it he said something I thought was extraordinary. The British press has been unanimous today in praising the Archbishop for socking it to Mugabe and so far I haven’t seen anyone comment on his remark that, ‘the current regime is no better than the colonial misrule it replaced.’

No better than? That’s one of those constructions you have to think about. Does he mean it’s worse? Or perhaps worse to a mind-blowingly astronomical degree? Or does he mean it’s about the same, give or take a wrecked economy and a reign of terror? Could he possibly mean that? I think he could. After all he did use the words ‘colonial misrule.’

Well never let us forget that under colonial ‘misrule’ Southern Rhodesia exported food. Now 14 percent of Zimbabwe’s dwindling population depends on international aid for its food, unemployment is around 80 percent and life expectancy is in the low 40s. I mean, am I missing something here?

I was thinking about a caption for this photo. How about, ‘and in this room we have my wife’s collection of Ferragamo shoes. Please, step inside. No charge.’