Soldiers on the streets of UK cities

[Dan1980]

The British terror threat is at critical and we have soldiers on the streets of our cities. A family friend was at the concert on Monday with her children, listening to her telling me what she saw on that night broke my heart.

[Genersis]

Truly awful. Been avoiding the subject, as I really don't have anything to say beyond empty feeling platitudes.
Sorry to hear your friend experienced this first hand.

Personally, I don't like the idea of deploying troops(bit too authoritarian for my hippy streak), but they're basically standing in as temporary police officers in key locations.
Would of been nice if we actually had the officers to cover such instead, but meh...

[TigerLover]

Well it's largely symbolic the troops have been sent to guard possible targets for secondary attacks.

Including Buckingham palace...
which already has a literal small army guarding it.

I think it's just the government trying to look busy. Manchester police even refused military help.

[Emiliano]

Well it's largely symbolic the troops have been sent to guard possible targets for secondary attacks.

Including Buckingham palace...
which already has a literal small army guarding it.

I think it's just the government trying to look busy. Manchester police even refused military help.

For a long time here in NYC you can find the national guard patrolling places like Wall Street, Grand Central, Penn Station, and so on. And I've noticed the really militarized looking counter terrorism police officers in the subway or around the Staten Island Ferry a lot more lately.

I know this kind of stuff is mainly supposed to make people feel safer, but its also pretty creepy. Especially in terms of how quickly a person can get used to seeing that sort of thing.

[Jon]

Including Buckingham palace...
which already has a literal small army guarding it.

I bet those guards in red tunics and furry hats feel useless now. With their pretend rifles...

[LONDONER]

For a long time here in NYC you can find the national guard patrolling places like Wall Street, Grand Central, Penn Station, and so on. And I've noticed the really militarized looking counter terrorism police officers in the subway or around the Staten Island Ferry a lot more lately.

I know this kind of stuff is mainly supposed to make people feel safer, but its also pretty creepy. Especially in terms of how quickly a person can get used to seeing that sort of thing.

Worse for us in the UK [MENTION=21558]Emiliano[/MENTION], we're not so accustomed to seeing armed personnel on our streets.

[sillyboy86]

I don't think it's that weird, and to be honest I remember that when I was in London there were policemen hidden almost everyewhere. Not the same but also not so different.
Again, I lived in Bruxelles for a short period last year, few months after the terror attack, and it was more than common to see soldiers at every corner, in every metro station etc.
In both cases I never felt uncomfortable or 'in danger' because of that.