Robert Mugabe is a vile man, without respect for the rights of his citizens, or the effect that his misrule is having on his country’s well-being. A racist and a communist by conviction, and a murderer and thief by action, his vilification is total, covering all wings of political thought in this country, and rightly so.

So it must come as a surprise to most that we still lavish honours on Mugabe. He remains a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, despite a House of Commons select committee urging the government to strip him of that title, no less than four years ago. Despite the tough talk from Blair and Brown over Zimbabwe, they’ve refused to do the most simple thing and remove the endorsement that his knighthood represents.

In June, the University of Edinburgh stripped him of his honorary degree, having finally woken up to the well-documented genocide committed by Mugabe’s North Korean-trained militia in Matabeleland in the 1980s: which killed at least 20,000 and left hundreds of thousands starving.

This is a fine precedent for the government to take, and remove the vestige of honour that lies on his chest. So long as it remains, it stands not as an honour to Mugabe, who has long since abandoned that ideal, but as a dishonour to our country.

If you believe Mugabe should be stripped of knighthood, please sign this e-petition or join this Facebook group.