Strip Mugabe of his Knighthood say Lib Dems

6.09.48pm BST (GMT +0100) Thu 15th May 2008

As there continues to be no a date for the next round for Zimbabwe's presidential election local Liberal Democrat campaigner Jonathan Chatfield is giving his support to the call for Robert Mugabe to be stripped of his knighthood.

With the increasing signs that Mugabe intends to hold on to power and opposition supporters saying there has been an orchestrated campaign of violence against them, the Liberal Democrats have called on the Government to revoke Mugabe's honorary Knighthood.

Lib Dem Shadow Foreign Secretary, Edward Davey has written to the Cabinet Secretary, Gus O'Donnell, who chairs the Forfeiture Committee, to ask him to consider this urgently.

Commenting, Jonathan Chatfield Lib Dem parliamentary spokesperson for South East Cambridgeshire said:

"It is shocking that Robert Mugabe still retains a knighthood from our country.

"We must revoke this honour, not only for the integrity of our own honours system, but also to send the message that the British people will stand shoulder to shoulder with the Zimbabwean people against him.

"This shows not only Mugabe's own hypocrisy, given his criticisms of the UK, but also despite its rhetoric how slow the Government has been to use what little power we have against him.

" Zimbabwe was once the bread basket of East Africa , now its in ruins and life expectancy there is now amongst the lowest in the world, with dying in your 30s being typical."