HUMAN rights are the inviolable conditions that must be provided by any decent individual to another. Those rights are not conditional on the recipient being deserving or even grateful. The grant of human rights to another is an expression of humanity that is more meaningful to the giver than the receiver.

At the Conservative party conference, Theresa May said that the definition of human rights as expressed by the European Community is improperly applied to Britain.

She wants to replace it with a, somewhat less onerous, British Bill of Rights.

Mrs May illustrated her argument with a ridiculous lie about a cat.

In 1995, the European Court of Human Rights decided that the 1988 killings of three IRA terrorists in Gibraltar was unlawful. This was in opposition to a British inquest which decided otherwise. The Government used public interest immunity certificates, fraudulent documents and questionable arguments to achieve a lawful killing verdict at the original inquest.

If we twist the truth to get the result we want, haven’t we also got to accept that we are no longer the moral superiors we once thought we were?

Chris Pattison, Richmond.