Good Morning Britain returned to ITV this morning with the first instalment of the week and those watching at home tuned in to see Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid present. Joining them on a live video link was Robert Buckland MP to discuss the two murders which were carried out by a convicted terrorist on London Bridge on Friday afternoon. Understandably, the presenters were keen to find out what the Lord Chancellor and Secretary State for Justice’s thoughts were on the matter and it wasn’t long before Morgan grilled him about why the terrorist had been released from prison early after serving just half his prison sentence.
Not letting Buckland speak, Morgan interrupted and remarked: “Why has it taken the murder of these two brilliant people to concentrate your minds? It’s too late for these two people!”
He continued: “Again I ask you why has it taken, if you feel this strongly about it and it’s going to be at the heart of your government, why has it taken the Conservative’s ten years to wake up to what is the bleeding obvious?
“Which is actually, we face a unique precedent threat from Jihadists and we know they are plotting atrocities and yet we have let loads of them back onto the streets, we’ve welcomed them back from war zones where they have been in combat against our troops.
“We don’t know where these people are, we are not monitoring them properly and guess what? One of them goes and kills people!” Morgan stated.
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Buckland kept quiet and Morgan added: “It’s not a genius working this out, this is the bleeding obvious – that was always going to happen and it’s happened on your watch and you’ve been in charge of this for the years.
“So all this ‘this is all Labour’s fault’ is a load of baloney isn’t it? You’ve had ten years to put it right!”
Finally getting his chance to speak, Buckland explained: “This is not correct. The particular sentencing regime in this case was one passed by the Labour government.
“We have taken action to end this tule of release – indeed before this atrocity I had already announced with the Prime Minister plans to end automatic release for halfway. We were ahead of the curve,” Buckland argued.
Those watching at home took to Twitter to comment and one said: “@GMB Wasn’t it a Labour government that was in power when he was sentenced?
“The b*****d was sentenced under Labour legislation. Not the Conservatives fault. It’s Labour. He was convicted in February 2012 before the indeterminate sentence was abolished.”
But someone else argued: “@GMB It’s all of them, he was sentenced under Labour legislation, sentence was reduced under the coalition – ALL parties have a hand in application of this legislation and his release – they need to stop blame game and work TOGETHER to sort out complex area to make it more effective.”
“@GMB Blame game needs to stop – it is unhelpful and they’re all to blame, he was sentenced under Labour legislation and sentence reduced under coalition, hence Labour, Conservative and LibDem ALL to blame,” a third remarked.
The two victims who tragically died have been named as Cambridge University graduates Jack Merritt, 25, and Saskia Jones, 23, both of whom had been at a conference at Fishmongers Hall in the capital, where they were celebrating the five-year anniversary of the Learning Together prison programme.
The terrorist who committed the murders was later shot dead by police on London Bridge.
An urgent review of the review of the licence conditions of convicted terrorists released from prison is going to be carried out as a result.
Good Morning Britain airs weekday mornings at 6am on ITV.
