 Throughout the past two centuries, the post of Foreign Secretary has - beside that of Prime Minister - been the grandest and the most cherished by ambitious politicians. The Foreign Office was one of the great departments of state, with the position of its superb Gilbert Scott building in the heart of Whitehall speaking eloquently about Britain's position in the world.  as we prepare to mark the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it is clearer than ever that Britain's relationships with the rest of the world - its alliances, its trade links, its diplomatic endeavours - are vitally important. Today, William Hague will make a speech setting out his vision for his department. Yet he will do so after a period in which the Foreign Office's standing has gone into shameful decline.  There is no question that in recent years - and, in particular, since Douglas Hurd stepped down in 1995 - the Foreign Office has been worryingly neglected. Robin Cook, for example, was desperately upset when he was made shadow foreign secretary, which he regarded as a demotion. after the 1997 election, Tony Blair set up his own informal foreign policy apparatus, using the Foreign Office largely as a source of political patronage. a number of ambassadors' jobs were given to No 10 cronies, disregarding the Civil Service career structure, while the Blairs themselves started to view the diplomatic service, with its cut-price access to large houses in desirable locations, as a kind of travel agent. On one occasion, our honorary consul in Toulouse was put to work finding the Blairs a villa to rent; on others, the couple installed themselves in official residences overseas.  Sir Michael (now Lord) Jay, the department's permanent secretary for much of this time, seems to have gone along with it all. More damagingly, he joined in the fashionable attack on the ethos and values of the FCO itself. Its language school was closed, a sign that the importance of language skills and a deep understanding of cultures and nationalities was being downgraded. Instead, Jay imposed a regime that favoured management-speak and administrative abilities.  Then, in a barbaric and near-criminal act, David Miliband ordered the closure of the Foreign Office library, containing the records of 500 years of Britain's overseas entanglements, including the original copies of all our treaties. This institution was described by Gladstone's foreign secretary, Lord Granville, as "the pivot on which the whole machinery of the Office turned". Recently, I inspected its empty shelves, their contents having been dispersed, some turning up on eBay: it was both too sad for words, and a piquant symbol of New Labour's neglect of the lessons of history, for which British soldiers have paid such a price in afghanistan and Iraq.  Rory Stewart, the diplomat turned Tory MP, has just published a fascinating and wise little book, Can Intervention Work?, which provides sobering examples of the consequences of this approach. By 2009, he records, our 300-strong embassy in Kabul contained only two officials with a mastery of Dari, one of the most important local languages - this in a country where almost no one speaks English. and here is Stewart's verdict on the consequences of Lord Jay's tenure: "British civilians in Kabul were... well equipped for those processes of the international community connected with 'management best practice' and 'multilateral diplomacy', accounting, human resources, and 'global' policy around climate change, trade or heritage. But their knowledge about afghanistan itself was generally much more limited than that of a previous generation of foreign service officers." Health and safety became paramount. Diplomats were tied to their desks, answering emails and coping with the latest edicts on management. Last year, the post of deputy high commissioner in Pakistan became vacant. No one applied.  Even worse, New Labour allowed the stature of the FCO to collapse within government. This was true both of budgets - with resources switched from diplomacy to international development - and influence. The Iraq war remains the telling moment: sceptical advice from Middle Eastern ambassadors, those despised arabists who understood the culture of the countries they worked in, was ignored. Corners were cut. Policy was captured and executed by No 10, with disastrous results. The treatment of Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the heroic legal adviser who warned that the invasion was illegal and resigned from the Foreign Office in protest, remains a matter of shame.  Yet there are some very welcome - and long overdue - signs that things are beginning to change, and that some of the traditional pride and rigour of the diplomatic service is being restored. above all, William Hague is the first Foreign Secretary for years to have a sense of the weight and magnitude of the FCO's role.  This can express itself in small ways. all visiting foreign ministers are now met personally at the steps of the building by Mr Hague. He also takes trouble to discover their enthusiasms. The Turkish foreign minister, ahmet Davutoglu, is a keen antiquarian: Mr Hague took him to inspect rare books in the British Library. avigdor Lieberman of Israel was hauled off to the Cabinet War Rooms. Sergei Lavrov of Russia enjoyed a whisky tasting with his British counterpart at Berry Brothers' ancient offices in St James's.  More importantly, Mr Hague exercises greater clout in Whitehall - and gets on better with his senior colleagues - than any foreign secretary since Hurd. This means he can fight his department's battles in a way his predecessors could not. David Miliband, for example, was bullied into giving away the special exchange-rate protection that shielded embassies  