It will not be until we get more than just a foretaste of what a Labour Government could do in office that we will have the true measure of Robin Cook and his policies towards Hong Kong. The opposition Foreign Affairs spokesman's good intentions are in no doubt. But as he admitted during his visit to Hong Kong this week, he was not entirely sure of his legal or political options once in government.
It is a little worrying that Mr Cook can blithely promise a range of possible responses to a breach of the Joint Declaration - and then publicly admit he does not actually know if the most serious of those options, legal action, is possible under international law.
But it is refreshing to hear a British politician calling a spade a spade on the subject of Hong Kong - whether one agrees or not with his position. And with the likelihood that he will be Foreign Secretary by the time of the handover, what Mr Cook thinks is important.
British policy all too easily takes refuge in evasions or grey areas. Mr Cook made clear that he thought a provisional legislature incompatible with the Joint Declaration.
Of more practical use was his commitment to grant Hong Kong's stateless ethnic minorities the unconditional right of abode in Britain - without first having to prove they were under pressure to leave Hong Kong.
That was a clear improvement on the cautiously worded pledges from the Prime Minister and a series of Conservative Foreign Secretaries.
