Writing in The Daily Telegraph, Kate Hoey, the former Sports Minister, demands that her successor, Richard Caborn, takes the same stance that the Australian government recently took, and demands a boycott of Zimbabwean cricket.

Mr Caborn was a noted campaigner against apartheid in South Africa and an advocate of the sporting boycott. He should now join all those in Zimbabwe, including the trade unions, calling for a similar sporting boycott of Zimbabwe. It is time for an end to double standards.

And Hoey's article was followed by an announcement that the Liberal Democrats had tables a Commons motion critical of the decision to grant the visa. The party's shadow Culture, Media and Sport Secretary, Don Foster MP, said:

Considering the way in which Mr Chingoka was appointed to his job, its is frankly ridiculous to argue that cricket has not become a political tool of this deplorable regime.