England could cease to exist.
It could sink into the ocean, like Atlantis.
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What I gather from reading the comments on bb is that we really need to:
lose words like “outrages”,
accept the fact that all of this is our own fault going back to el Cid and Charles Martel,
recognize that more people die in auto accidents/backyard falls/whatever than in suicide attacks;
and basically Just Get Over It And Get Used To It.
Which might be an idea, and when I see Jeremy Corbyn or Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren advocating just those policies, I’ll think that it might catch on.
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“First of all, all you people suck”
“Politicians you like suck too”
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Nicely and thoughtfully played, my hat’s off to you.
That is how people get to the argument for secure borders. Because it is usually easier to secure a perimeter than it is to secure everything inside it.
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Let us rejoice, and let us sing, and dance, and ring in the new.
What you have is a double-edged sword. The government either sits idly and waits for something to happen, or it proactively prepares a highly visible response. Both are worrying outcomes. It seems the govt is expecting some more shooty bangs.
But in any case, you only reap what you sow, so none of this should be unexpected. My guess in the longer term is that, after the soldiers are returned to barracks, you will wind up with a permanently more fully armed police force.
This does not seem to be true. Shin Bet, the Jerusalem Police and the IDF have done exactly this. There do seem to be a fair number of “tells” and things to look for which can lead to stopping a suicide bomber attack.
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Well someone’s gotta use all those guns…
Yes, there is. But if you have visited both mainland Britain and France you might have observed that the respective approach to military personnel in public spaces is very different in the two countries.
This is what used for count for military presence in London 
Having lived in London for 17 years I have not seen any armed military in the streets, ever. Nor have I seen armed Police unless they were involved in a raid. Visiting France on the other hand I have always been struck by how casually Military and heavily armed Police personnel patrol public spaces.
Yes in recent years there is the odd armed officer in Westminster. Non the less every time I was searched to go to a meeting there the officers at security were regular unarmed Bobbys. All this might significantly change now and not for the better.
I remember when you could just walk up to the gate of the White House and up the stairs and into Congress and easy access to these buildings was considered a symbol of a well functioning democracy. All that has changed unrecognisably. If you try to explain to a kid today that you use to be able to walk into Congress they think you are from another planet.
These shifts in what is normal matter–they change our world and how we live in it.
EDIT to add this for comparison–this is apparently normal in Paris on Bastille Day
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Last time I was in London was before 9/11 and I do distinctly remember seeing armed police officers and they did not seem to be involved in a raid.
Yes there is a huge difference between police presence and military presence, I made that point already. The military presence on the streets of Paris is actually a relatively recent thing, only a few years and is in direct response to terror incidents.
On a personal note when I was in Paris in 2016, I personally felt reassured due to the presence of 3 person fireteams at the entrance and exit to the synagogue I went to. Unfortunate but thats how it was.
Your photo of Bastille Day is not normative nor really relevant to the particular situation. A parade is not a patrol.
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The point I was responding to, from, er, you, was the very emphatic:
And it’s really not “the odd armed officer in Westminster”. I’ve seen them patrolling in pairs, with SMGs, at the major London rail temini for years.
Yes, it’s unusual to see an armed officer in the UK, and that’s A Good Thing. But it’s really not as vanishingly rare as you’re suggesting, nor as recent.
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We can go in circle around here. It seems you live, move in a London different from me.
All I can say is that until now mainland UK seemed a armed free zone. I live in central Londonand use regularly use mainline stations and can count the number of instances I saw someone carry a weapon in Liverpool Street Station or Kings Cross on one hand and that is in the last 17 years.
The point is that 7/7 didn’t change that–until now, unlike in Paris where armed patrol in stations is the new normal!
Armed security at synagogs has been a reality in many European cities for as long as I can remember. Both the Berlin Synagogs as well as those in Vienna have always had armed security. Depressing as it may be that is not new.
I contrasted two parades so I guess in relation to parades the picture of a parade could be considered normative?
My point is and was that the British and the French have a very different relationship to the military. It is unimaginable that a parade on such scale with tankers would run through London streets (for starters the Brits wouldn’t pay for it!), the most we get here are horses and a golden carriage. We likeD our military anachronistic. Here some images from the Lord Mayor’s Show, which is as militarised as parades ever get around here:
Brits don’t like armed presence on the British Mainland–they reserve that to Northern Ireland and Foreign Territories.
But hey ho cultural and historical nuances are there to be trampled on. And I am sure you will prove to me that there is no cultural difference between France and Britain when it comes to employing the military.
The context here was armed patrols as made explicit in the previous sentences. Which up to now has not been a thing on the Mainland.
Prey, tell me which major London terminal has that been? I seem to have missed it on my travels. For starters Britain just doesn’t have the Police numbers. According to government figures there were 5639 Authorised Firearms Officers in 2016 in all of England and Wales. It seems impossible that such a number could systematically patrol anything while also responding to incidents in a population of 50+ Million. That is one armed officer on the street for every 10 000 citizens assuming that they work 24/7 365 days / year. Which is of course why the Army is now being called in.
Just how distinct is your recollection, would you say?
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There are armed police around London, but that is unusual. Even there most cops are not armed.
In 25 years of living in Carlisle the only time I ever saw armed police was on a school trip to Sellafield. I never saw them on my regular visits to Newcastle, Glasgow, Edinburgh or the southwest of Scotland.
As for France, the gendarmerie have always been a military police force. The British police was meant to be a civilian force to get away from that. Some British people (including the police themselves) take policing by consent and Peelian principles seriously, even if Theresa May doesn’t.
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I hope you mean ‘Pray’ 
Euston multiple times, Kings Cross St Pancras and Waterloo at least once each (maybe in the contexts of them being/having been international termini) and somewhere else that eludes me - maybe Charing Cross.
I’d be interested to see the breakdown of where those armed offices are based - I wouldn’t be surprised if London has a third to half of them. They’re certainly not distributed evenly - I recall the shootings in West Cumbria, when the nearest armed officers weren’t exactly nearby.
Literally by definition!
‘The term “gendarmerie” is derived from the medieval French expression gens d’armes, which translates to “armed men”.’ [Wikipedia].
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Unlikely seeing as they cannot even find enough existing police to volunteer for armed roles, given the personal liability risk. Substantial changes to policing law to provide more grounds for police immunity would be needed and that might be tough sell for now. More shooty bangs? I guess it may get easier to sell.
I live in Tokyo I merely visited there for work. Doesn’t matter since multiple people have disputed your claim.
Clear enough since at the time I was under the impression that no British police carry guns so I remembered it clearly.
That’s a rather curious reading of the comments, given that mostly they actually confirmed my claim that seeing armed police on London streets is a highly unusual / rare i.e. one of event.
And that according to the article @doop sites the British Transport Police (the only force authorised to patrol rail station) did not deploy armed officers pre 2012 Olympics.
Are you sure you are not confusing Tokyo with London here. As for those of us actually living here seeing armed police not to mention army seems an alarming, highly unusual event.
Err, troops patrolled the streets of Northern Ireland for nearly 30 years.
And the PSNI is an armed police force, as was its predecessor, the RUC (and its predecessor, the all-Ireland RIC).
