You have not played a captain's innings, Mr Blair

For a man of high moral passions, who is prepared to lead his country to war in order to deliver the Iraqi people from dictatorship, Tony Blair is capable of outstanding moral cowardice. He told his semi-official chronicler at the time of the Iraq war, Peter Stothard, that people asked him why "we" do not get rid of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the military regime in Burma. "Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can, you should."

For a man of high moral passions, who is prepared to lead his country to war in order to deliver the Iraqi people from dictatorship, Tony Blair is capable of outstanding moral cowardice. He told his semi-official chronicler at the time of the Iraq war, Peter Stothard, that people asked him why "we" do not get rid of Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe or the military regime in Burma. "Yes, let's get rid of them all. I don't because I can't, but when you can, you should."

Well, he could have done his bit. He could have added one straw to the camel's back. He could have asked the England cricket team not to play in the series that opens in Harare today.

He would have had to do more than that, of course. He would have to take account of the moral cowardice of others. Steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff and Marcus Trescothick should be congratulated for their principled refusal to go to Zimbabwe. But, as Henry Olonga argues on page 22, the issue should not be left to individual players. David Morgan, the head of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB), has rightly been pilloried for his failure of leadership.

The ECB asked Des Wilson, the Liberal Democrat campaigner who chaired its advisory committee, for a report on whether the team should tour Zimbabwe. He said they should not, on moral grounds. Mr Morgan decided to ignore him and Mr Wilson resigned.

Mr Morgan's argument was that, unless Mr Blair ordered the team to stay at home, the ECB would be fined by the sport's world ruling body, the International Cricket Council. The shamelessness of the ICC therefore justifies the spinelessness of the ECB. Yet the Prime Minister's response was equally feeble. He would rather the team did not go, he said, but he did not have the power to stop them. He argued that Britain is a free country, unlike Zimbabwe, and that politicians therefore should not decide with whom sports people should compete. Given that the ECB and the players were desperate to be told not to go, this is simply an evasion of responsibility.

If Mr Blair could not bring himself to exercise the leadership that would have been gratefully followed, he could at least have offered to compensate the ECB for the cost of not playing in Zimbabwe - which might well have bankrupted it.

A cricket boycott of Zimbabwe would not bring Mr Mugabe's odious regime to its knees, but it would increase its isolation. Limited sanctions have already been applied by the European Union, and Zimbabwe has been suspended from the Commonwealth. It is not as if cricket is being asked to make a pointless gesture to make British liberals feel better - this tour offers practical succour to Mr Mugabe, a small but significant badge of legitimacy in domestic and wider African opinion.

This sorry saga, which has been dragging on for years, is one of feebleness piled upon cowardice. Mr Blair's fine rhetoric of promoting democracy and sound government as the key to development in Africa rings especially hollow today.