Britain and other Western nations plan to use today’s United Nations summit to ambush President Mbeki of South Africa over the crisis gripping Zimbabwe.

Gordon Brown is expected to raise the election stand-off in Zimbabwe at a Security Council summit chaired by Mr Mbeki, even though it is not on the agenda.

Diplomats say that France and the US will follow suit, although the council is unlikely to take any formal action to force the release of the results of the March 29 election.

President Bush spoke by telephone yesterday to Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, to tell him that the wait for the election results in Zimbabwe had “gone on too long,” the White House said.

Afterwards, Mr Ban called for the "very transparent and expeditious release of the election results".

Britain told South Africa that Mr Brown would raise Zimbabwe in the Security Council if last weekend’s summit of the Southern African Development Community failed to break the impasse, Whitehall sources say.

Mr Brown is due to meet Mr Mbeki privately before the Security Council session in New York. He will also have talks with President Kikwete of Tanzania, chairman of the African Union.

South Africa organised the UN summit on African Union-UN cooperation during its month-long presidency of the 15-nation Security Council as part of its campaign for a permanent seat at the top table of international diplomacy. But Mr Mbeki risks being embarrassed by his support of President Mugabe of Zimbabwe.

Dumisani Kumalo, South Africa’s UN Ambassador, repeated yesterday that Zimbabwe was not an appropriate subject for the Security Council “because we, the neighbours, are doing something”. But he said of British, French and US plans to raise the issue: “Those are huge countries. They can raise whatever they want to raise.”

South Africa’s ruling African National Congress, in its strongest criticism so far of President Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy, gave warning of a dire situation in Zimbabwe that was hurting all of southern Africa.

The Zimbabwean opposition Movement for Democratic Change has pinned its hopes on today’s UN session, after its call for a general strike fizzled out yesterday. Harold, an MDC worker, told The Times from his hospital bed, where he was recovering from a seven-hour beating and torture session by government-backed militiamen: “I don’t understand how the foreign countries can just stand by and watch while we are killed. If the United Nations stands for anything, it must be to save us.”

Harare was normal yesterday – with snaking bread and bank queues and black-market dealers – despite the MDC’s strike call. It was a last effort to pressure the Government into releasing the election results after the MDC’s failure in the courts.

The strike’s failure highlighted many of the strictures on Zimbabwe’s Opposition as it battles against a powerful leader hell-bent on clinging to power. With media access strictly controlled by the State, opposition activists, already facing a brutal campaign of state-sponsored violence, had to resort to handing out pamphlets. The result was that most of the country never heard the strike call. Those who did were in a terrible dilemma: lose a critical day’s wages, or work to feed their family and let the movement down.

One restaurant owner said of her staff: “I told them to do what their conscience told them. I can’t close down whatever I think of the strike because the Government could just tell me I can never open again.” With 80 per cent unemployment, striking is the privilege of the few.

Shari Eppel, a human rights activist, said: “If people here don’t have bread, they don’t start a bread riot, they cross the border and buy it there. But if they were to take to the streets, they know they would simply be shot down.”

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