Gordon Brown has adopted a very moral stance on Zimbabwe by threatening to snub its president, Robert Mugabe.
In an article for the Independent, the prime minister says he will boycott the European Union-African Union summit in Lisbon in December if Mr Mugabe is allowed to attend.
In what the Independent says is his first policy statement on Zimbabwe, Mr Brown does not mince his words. He describes the situation there as "tragic and appalling" and accuses Mr Mugabe of abusing his own people. "There is no freedom in Zimbabwe: no freedom of association; no freedom of the press. And there is widespread torture and mass intimidation of the political opposition," says Mr Brown.
The paper says his threat to boycott the summit could leave him isolated in the EU. It says Portugal has invited Mr Mugabe because other African leaders want him to attend. Mr Brown apparently will try to persuade other EU members, such as Germany and Denmark, to join his boycott if Mugabe is allowed to go to Lisbon.
Mr Brown's threat presents Portugal with an "excruciating choice", according to the Financial Times: "Either blacklist Mr Mugabe and risk a boycott by other African countries, or allow Mr Mugabe to attend and risk the absence of Britain and perhaps other European countries."
The Times says Mr Brown has "toughened" Britain's attitude to Zimbabwe.
The Independent's Daniel Howden says Mr Brown's stance will fuel colonial conspiracy theories that Mr Mugabe likes to put across in Zimbabwe. He also points out that diplomats negotiating for political progress in Zimbabwe regard British attacks as "counterproductive".
"No one close to the drawn-out negotiations in Pretoria seems keen for Britain to pick up the megaphone again," Howden says.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe has "scoffed" at the threat, according to AFP via Africasia.com.
* This is an edited extract from the Wrap, our digest of the daily papers.
