Tory scum pretend they care

Continuing the theme of the problematic nature of human rights discourse from this morning, I was reading Craig Murray's blog when I followed a link and discovered that the Conservative Party has established its very own Human Rights Commission. Which came as something of a surprise.

Apparently the Commission has been established to "develop the party's foreign policy by making human rights a priority" because "Freedom and human dignity should be at the heart of our foreign policy." This all sounds suspiciously like Robin Cook's rhetoric about putting "human rights at the heart of our foreign policy" and I suspect that if there Tories were ever to return to power (FSM forbid), they'd implement their worthy sentiments with the same degree of consistency.

I'm also less than encouraged by the presence of neo-con egghead Michael Gove in the Commission, particularly as the paranoid red-hating nutjob is apparently going to focus on Cuba. Coupled with the telling absence of both the Occupied Territories and modern day Iraq from the list of "Countries of Focus," I wonder if there isn't a danger that this might end up looking more like a Project for the New British Century than Amnesty International.