I am delighted that a new canpaign has started today against the state enforced child slavery in the uzbek cotton industry, especially as this campaign originates in Germany, where a significant portion of society appears to have finally woken up to the reality of the German government’s appalling complicity in the Nazi style regime and atrocities of Karimov.

However in the UK it remains the case that since the coalition government came to power, there has not been one single government statement on the human rights atrocities in Uzbekistan or – even more damning of our sham democracy – one single statement or question from New Labour.