President Robert Mugabe on Friday told 15,000 cheering supporters in a speech marking the 28th anniversary of Zimbabwe’s independence that Britain was paying Zimbabweans to turn against him.

In his first significant speech since the March 29 elections in which his Zanu-PF party lost its parliamentary majority for the first time, Mr Mugabe said the British government were “thieves fronting their lackeys among us” whom they “give money to confuse the people”.