ARE MORE CRACKS APPEARINGIN THE ILL-FITTING COALITION?

The Observer has reported that civil servants have been told to stop working on the next edition of the FCO Annual Report on Human Rights, which details incidents of torture and oppression, use of the death penalty and illegal arms trading.

The report is supposedly also a guide to MPs and businesses over which countries it is ethical to trade with, which may or may not have an effect on whether we trade with them or not.

Well, some things have to go, you might say, and why not this? After all, the idea of ethical foreign policy was only something Robin Cook dreamt about for a few weeks before the FCO pointed out what life was like in the real world.

Businesses exist to make money not pass moral judgments, and, in any case, no one much cares what Britain thinks about anything, unless America thinks it too. The CIA’s report is important; this is a “fur coat” exercise.

Last year’s report highlighted atrocities in countries like Russia, China, Gaza and Saudi Arabia among the usual suspects of Zimbabwe, Sudan, Burma, DRC, and Sri Lanka. And what did we do about that?

Of course Milipede the elder, the comic one with the banana, acting opposition spokesman on Foreign Affairs, was trying to insist that Britain leads the world in Human Rights... Sheeesh. You really do wonder sometimes if these people ever even visit Britain, much less spend any time here. Don’t you? I mean, have we banned Chinese goods? Is there no further arms trading with Saudi? Have we stopped speaking to the US because of Guantanamo? Thought not.

Of course it is well known that Cameron didn’t want to slash the 25-40%, that was ordered for elsewhere, from the budget for Embassies. Firstly that would reduce the standing of Britain on the party circuit. People would talk about one over the canapés. “I say, did you see Britain has closed its embassies in Baku and Ulan Bator? Must be in a bad way.”

And of course, a lot of these Ambassadors, who live like kings at our expense, went to Eton or Oxford with David. So that was never going to happen. One doesn’t do that kind of thing to people one was at school with. It’s just not on.

No, instead, in return for the big house, the Rolls Royce, the fat salary and great pension, along with as many servants as you can shake a stick at, ambassadors have been told that they must concentrate on trade. It is feared that ministers are now "blindly" pursuing commercial interests in countries where atrocities are taking place. (As if they didn’t before!!)

So why am I interested in it? Well, it seems that Ming Campbell, one of the Liberal’s ex-leaders, and therefore a man with considerable influence in the party, has said that downgrading the importance of Human Rights would be met with "fierce resistance".

I wonder what that means.

No Dean, this is not Tory bashing. It's Britain bashing. Labour didn't do anything either!

I appreciate that it must be difficult to discipline ministers across two parties, especially when policies ride roughshod across what one of the parties stands for: in this case the Liberals (but in other cases it will be Tories). There are people who embrace the discipline, like Huhne and Clegg, Osborne and Cameron.

The trouble is that on both sides it’s pretty influential people: Ming and Charlie, David Davies and Norman Tebbit who are against. And they matter.

Pics are Ming and Norman...