Kenya's foreign minister, Moses Wetangula, insists congratulatory messages are irrelevant. In a sense he's right. Kibaki was relatively well-received by other leaders at last month's African Union summit and Kenya's candidate was even elected vice-chairman of the AU Commission.

But the election and its aftermath has undoubtedly reduced Kenya's standing around the continent. The government's dismissal of Cyril Ramaphosa as the chief negotiator for the current peace talks unnecessarily angered South Africa , while other leaders have privately called on Kibaki to accept a compromise.

All of which makes one wonder why Britain has been so reticent to speak out. David Miliband was fairly vocal early on, telling Radio 4 that the UK didn't recognise the Kibaki government. But since then they've been fairly quiet. The minister for Africa, Lord Malloch Brown, had some very strong words when he spoke to the British press, accusing "hidden hands" of orchestrating the violence, but was strangely muted when speaking to our Kenyan counterparts. Some news channels and newspapers even interpreted his meeting with President Kibaki as proof that Britain now recognised Kibaki's government. Britain is clearly worried that Kibaki might, in the words of one European diplomat, "pull a Mugabe" and try to blame its former colonial master for its current woes. But while that strategy may have had some success for Mugabe, the public support of so few African nations suggests it wouldn't work so well for Kibaki.