The days of Robert Mugabe's regime are numbered, Clare Short has predicted.

The international development secretary told MPs that there were increasing signs that Zimbabwe's leadership was beginning to crumble.

"Things seem to be moving," she told MPs on Wednesday. "The mass stay-aways seem to be quite big. My instinct is that the end is coming. It can't come soon enough."

Short said efforts to bring an end to the Mugabe regime had been hampered by the absence of an international court and the lack of political will among Zimbabwe's neighbours.

"We don't have the tools to deal with these individual dictators," she told MPs, adding later that the pressure on Mugabe from within Africa "has been much less than it should have been".

And she warned that the "disaster is quite terrible in terms of destruction of the economy, thuggery and hunger and suffering".

Shadow international development secretary Caroline Spelman voiced concern that this week's private meeting between Robert Mugabe and African leaders failed to make progress.

She called for action to stop state-sponsored violence being organised by Mugabe's Zanu-PF party.

Speaking earlier in the day, the prime minister called for the international community to put the "maximum pressure" on the regime.

"The situation in Zimbabwe remains a very serious situation indeed. There has not been real progress there at all, in our view," Tony Blair said in Downing Street.

"We continue to have not merely a situation where there is a lack of proper democracy and proper adherence to human rights, but also the appalling humanitarian situation that has been exacerbated by the political situation.

"We will work together and do everything we possibly can in order to try to bring relief to people in Zimbabwe who are suffering so much, both in a political sense and because of the humanitarian crisis that has been allowed to develop."

His comments were supported by the Australian prime minister, John Howard, who said Mugabe's actions were "inexcusable".

"The suffering of the people, both black and white, in Zimbabwe is not only distressing but inexcusable and appalling and a terrible indictment of someone who has lost any pretence of governing for the welfare of the people of that country," he said.