We have all found ourselves making a point and seeing the argument run away from us unexpectedly. Perhaps that was Robert Jenrick’s feeling when he was challenged on a claim that the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) was giving British soldiers no option but to murder terrorist suspects.
‘Our special forces are killing rather than capturing terrorists because our lawyers tell us that if they’re caught, the European court will set them free,’ he claimed. When asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme to provide evidence for this allegation, he temporised somewhat, pointing to claims former defence secretary Sir Ben Wallace had made in an interview with the Daily Telegraph last September. Then he retreated behind a national security shield:
Jenrick either cannot or will not provide examples to support his argument
Of course I’m not going to elaborate on particular cases because these things, these cases are not things that any minister can speak about.
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