It was a great bit of journalism on the part of the Independent on Sunday to trawl through the register of interests and pull out those with shareholdings in firms with links to Zimbabwe. Putting 2 and 2 together was not exactly taxing but it required someone to have the brainwave. Perhaps the most surprising revelation - if something in the public domain already can be called a revelation - was that not all the 'guilty' MPs were Tories.

David Cameron has asked his own flock, including new Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, to look at their investments. Some have politely told him to mind his own business. They, after all, unlike him, do not draw a Cabinet Minister-level salary.

All this raises serious questions about share investments (presumably something the Independent on Sunday doesn't altogether approve of, but never mind). Is there a material difference between owning Barclays shares, for instance, and having a Barclaycard? I suppose the difference, such as it is, is that having a Barclaycard or a Barclays bank account doesn't give us a say in the running of the business and, therefore, the opportunity to politely ask the Board to get the hell out of Zimbabwe. For mere customers to have an influence requires hundreds of thousands of us to take the scissors to our cards or go through the hassle of changing bank accounts.

Among the other companies in the firing line is Waitrose (not a client, I hasten to add). Are they simply supposed to fire their 450 workers in Zim? Would that make IoS readers feel better? Wouldn't the more correct approach be to target not simply any multinational company doing business in Zimbabwe, but those doing business with the tyrannical Mugabe regime?

Some of the companies named in the IoS report have admitted that their PR efforts to explain their positions have been slow off the mark. Some have a better story to tell than others, one suspects.

No doubt some of the firms feel they are being unfairly targeted by the media. You know the sort of thing: Mugabe is a monster but so are lots of other leaders in the developing world. Are Western firms just supposed to leave Africa to its own devices, investing only in the handful of countries that Freedom House regards as free ? Tempting as this argument might appear, it is not for business to decide what's of interest politically and what isn't. The fact is that Zimbabwe is this month's news and what's going on in Chad isn't. Life isn't fair, as they say.

I'm just left wondering if the Independent on Sunday will be exhorting businesses to flood Zimbabwe with capital once the old bugger has gone and an MDC government has been installed? Or is the real gripe with capitalism per se, or just capitalism as practised in Zimbabwe.

Yes, you're right - I am getting cynical in my old age.