A new Mugabe?

Britain has discharged its responsibility to Zimbabwe, its last African colony, with what even the most suspicious must see as democratic punctilio. Having brought about a tolerably clean election, and ended a seven-year war, it is about to hand over Zimbabwe to a man who is the indisputable choice of most of his people. Mr Robert Mugabe's sweeping victory gives him a claim to the prime ministership which nobody, inside Zimbabwe or outside, should attempt to obstruct. Mrs Thatcher's Conservative government, hard pressed at home, has against the odds and to most people's surprise carried through a major act of foreign policy to its intended conclusion.