You should try listening to what people actually say. JTAC made their decision based on intelligence, and the Met subsequently requested implementation of part a plan called Operation Temperer, in which army personnel replace numbers of armed police in mainly guarding duties, freeing those armed police to operate elsewhere while the response continues. All of this has been confirmed by various individuals, including Cressida Dick and Mark Rowley.

So, for clarity - it was a Met decision and it's an entirely sensible response.

Removing Gadaffi and leaving a vacuum behind to be filled by jihadis has worked really well for Libya and the rest of us.

Cameron was eager to act as the international statesman when he was supporting airstrikes. Where is he now?

Shades of Iraq.

When you create these failed states you create opportunists for extremists.

Because the police don't have the resource to respond appropriately; Mrs May was warned directly of this by the Police Fed conference in 2013 - where an officer she had previously presented the Community Police Officer of the Year award to, stood up and said he had since resigned, because her cuts had decimated community policing, meaning that they weren't able to gather intelligence from local communities about activities like this, because there weren't enough of them.

Spin it however you like, but deploying the army is not an inevitable result of the threat level being raised to critical; that's happened twice before, without the army being used to replaced police - it's happened because our Tory austerity police force can't respond.

Every now and again the Police get stretched so we supplement them with the Army. Big deal. Why pay over the top for coppers we don't need day to day, plus it was an opportunity to drive out the dead wood As a result, tests taken by the Metropolitan Police in 2011 found that just 25 per cent of male officers and staff were of normal weight, with 52 per cent overweight, 22 per cent obese and 1 per cent morbidly obese. Of the women surveyed, 50 per cent were of normal weight with 32 per cent overweight, 16 per cent obese and 2 per cent morbidly obese. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... tests.html Typical poorly managed public sector organisation

Every now and again the Police get stretched so we supplement them with the Army. Big deal. Why pay over the top for coppers we don't need day to day, plus it was an opportunity to drive out the dead wood As a result, tests taken by the Metropolitan Police in 2011 found that just 25 per cent of male officers and staff were of normal weight, with 52 per cent overweight, 22 per cent obese and 1 per cent morbidly obese. Of the women surveyed, 50 per cent were of normal weight with 32 per cent overweight, 16 per cent obese and 2 per cent morbidly obese. www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... tests.html Typical poorly managed public sector organisation

Why should police staff be watching their weight any more than you or me?

Rather distressing posts from Fire men who were not allowed to attend for "health and safety reasons". https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... ction_list

Rather distressing posts from Fire men who were not allowed to attend for "health and safety reasons". https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_ ... ction_list

Because I sit in an office all day as a job. They are expected to chase criminals and being fat doesn't help that.

Yep - Bobbies spend their working hours chasing stripey jumper clad bad guys down our streets.

You're an idiot.

I'm afraid you're displaying your ignorance there. Police staff don't chase criminals. Police officers do that.

As a former member of police staff I speak from experience.

Your figures quoted police officers AND staff. I'd be interested in the figures for just officers.

Sometimes facts don't fit with your prejudice.

Come back when you've got the right numbers before slagging off people that keep you safe.

22 years in the Army tells me there is no place for fatties in an active job like the Military and Police. Go on tell me all the England rugby team are clinically obese on the scale.

If they aren't chasing criminals they should be privatised.

In the bar one night you're getting beaten up by 6 blokes. You have a choice of assistance, would you pick a Constable Fred Astaire, or a Constable William "The Refrigerator" Perry?

I fully agree. What we can do though is make it far more difficult for those known or flagged up to the police and intelligence agencies to operate. We have to stop worrying about the possibility that we may offend somebody from a particular nation or of a particular belief by taking a hard line. This is not about discrimination, it is about doing all that is possible to keep the nation as a whole as safe as possible.