Robert Mugabe, the Zimbabwean president, has claimed Britain is open to dialogue with his regime after a meeting with Sir Nicholas Soames, the Conservative MP, in Harare.

Sir Nicholas confirmed to the Telegraph that he met Mr Mugabe and said he was left "touched" after the "extraordinary" meeting with the 93-year-old authoritarian ruler, which was criticised by the Zimbabwean opposition.

Labour MP Kate Hoey, the chair of the all party parliamentary group on Zimbabwe said the meeting would "pander to the vanity of a wily and ruthless dictator".

Mr Soames, whose father Christopher Soames was the last governor of Southern Rhodesia and oversaw Mr Mugabe's accession to power at the end of white minority rule, spent 45-minutes with the aging president on Wednesday evening.

“I was invited by the ambassador [Catriona Laing] to go to Zimbabwe to take part in the Embassy's commemorations of first World War and to see Commonwealth war graves," Sir Nicholas told the Telegraph.

"It suddenly occurred to me that my darling old dad would never forgive me if I didn’t go and see Mr Mugabe," he said.