I have just finished reading Murder in Samarkand by Craig Murray, former British ambassador who refused to lie for or to his country. The author’s account of torture and oppression in Uzbekistan , sustained and supported by the USA, his denunciation of the regime of President Karimov and the attempts of the FCO to silence him has moved me to rage and tears. I urge everyone to read it. The Uzbek government is terrible, the American connivance is awful and the attitude of the Blair government, of Jack Straw and of the mandarins who manage our country’s foreign policy is despicable.