My source at Army headquarters in Harare, a major, told me the army would of course begin by opposing any invasion - but he admitted, it would soon surrender.

"Most of our boys already hate this government, especially the President," he said. "They say he just uses us to bully and torture the opposition - and he doesn't even pay us properly. I foresee most of our young soldiers joining an invasion force, not fighting it."

A man who fought the white Ian Smith government in the

long and bloody War of Liberation told me he would welcome British troops. Emmanuel Ndlovu, 43, of Bulawayo, an acknowledged war hero, said: "Mugabe has ruined our country. We are starving. We need someone to spur us into action, and we will fully support that."

Only the official Opposition spokesman, Nelson Chamisa of the MDC, voiced caution. "We have always believed and said that the best way out of this crisis is through the holding of free and fair elections. The only thing that the civilised world, including Britain, can do, is to put pressure on the regime to restore democratic freedoms in this country."

And, of course, there are no prizes for guessing how our Government Minister of State