In his speech to the Conservative Party Conference in Bournemouth this year, Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague has promised that “in our approach to foreign policy we will never forget that there are people in Burma and Darfur who have to fight for their very lives, and indeed under other despotic and vile regimes such as that of Zimbabwe.”

Developing the theme of “human rights at the heart of foreign policy” which he set out in a speech to the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission in April, Mr Hague said:

“In this country the language of human rights has sometimes been cheapened by laws that are out of touch with the people. But the right of a Burmese family not to be exterminated on the grounds of their ethnicity, the rights of farmers in Darfur not to be driven from their land by their own government, the rights of people in Zimbabwe to have a life expectancy beyond their thirties - these are real human rights that British people should be proud to justify and uphold.”

Mr Hague continued by saying: “Our foreign policy, as David Cameron set out on September 11th, will be that of liberal conservatives, supportive of spreading freedom and humanitarian intervention, but recognising the complexities of human nature and sceptical of grand schemes to remake the world.”