Charles Moore’s column in the Telegraph today makes a very good case against enshrining the military covenant in law. As Charles argues, once the lawyers and the judges get their hands on it there could be a whole slew of unintended consequences. Judges could decide, for instance, that the court martial system does not offer soldiers ‘fair treatment’. Indeed, it is worth noting that the Major General, now retired, who drafted the covenant does not believe that it should be made law for precisely this reason.
There’s no doubt that under the last government were expected to fight wars on peace time budgets and that spending on the military overall was too low. But putting the covenant into law is not the right solution to that problem.
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