Editing Clare Short (section)

====Land reform in Zimbabwe====
On 6 November 1997, Short sent a letter to [[Kumbirai Kangai]], Minister of Agriculture of [[Zimbabwe]], in which she stated that "we do not accept that Britain has a special responsibility to meet the costs of land purchase in Zimbabwe." She went on to write "We are a new government from diverse backgrounds, without links to former colonial interests. My own origins are Irish and, as you know, we were colonised, not colonisers." In the same letter she did, however, offer qualified support for land reform: "We do recognise the very real issues you face over land reform... we would be prepared to support a programme of land reform that was part of a poverty eradication strategy, but not on any other basis." This letter caused a rift with the Zimbabwean government, which asserted that the [[Lancaster House Agreement]] of 1979 had contained a pledge from the United Kingdom government to assist in [[Land reform in Zimbabwe|land reform]].<ref name="McGreal">Chris McGreal, "Blair's worse than the Tories, says Mugabe," ''Mail and Guardian'' (Johannesburg), 22 December 1997.</ref>