Portugal in Shock Invite to Ruthless Tyrant

As soon as the Socialist Portuguese Prime Minister, José Sócrates, who took over the rotating EU council presidency from Germany yesterday, got his feet under the table, he stooped smartly into the gutter and made it clear he wants to invite no less an individual than Robert Mugabe to a Europe-Africa summit in December of this year.

Quite apart from the fact that Mugabe, Africa's nastiest megalomaniac, is, along with all his awful cronies, barred from travel within the EU, he is also the despot who has presided over the economic and social meltdown of a country that, in its former guise as Southern Rhodesia, was one of the breadbaskets of the continent. So low have his people sunk that, according to one newspaper report this weekend, schoolteachers have been reduced to turning tricks as prostitutes in bars whilst fat cat Mugabe cronies enrich themselves with unlimited wealth by virtue of their access to hard currency which they trade back and forth from the black market to the legitimate.

This is the tyrant who ought, instead of living out his days in the lap of luxury, to be facing indictment for crimes against humanity and torture, even genocide. Instead the odious Mr. Socrates will lay out the red carpet for him.

Quite why this invitation was ever issued will be beyond most decent people. Britain should veto his invitation now and if that means that other African nations do not turn up to this meeting, so be it. We. at least, will be able to occupy the moral high ground

This unpleasant story will tell you all you need to know about Le Grand Projet. We are at the moment bullied into agreeing to these pieces of unpleasantness. Soon we will legally have no choice as the EU nation state assumes control of all our policies.