I once interviewed Denis Norman, a former farmer who served in three of Robert Mugabe’s cabinets and knew him as well as any other white man. He told me a poignant story of his last meeting with the late Zimbabwean president before he retired to Sussex in 2003.
“I said: ‘Before I go can you answer one question? Where did it all go wrong?’ He said ‘Has it gone wrong?’ I said ‘I know it’s gone wrong. You know it’s gone wrong.’ Mugabe paused, before saying quietly: ‘It’s not going right, is it?’”
