Would you like to see troops on the streets?

Just been reading a bit of whether or not the public would want to see troops on the street (following the terrorist attack yesterday) around possible terrorist targets to become more normal - allowing police to get on with their normal workload.

The feeling was that the British public doesn't want it and are more comfortable with just the police.

I visited Paris just a few months back and had no problem with their army being present not only in and around the major sites and airport but also on the main streets and at various Metro stations.

These radicalised religious nutters are going to carry on doing atrocities and some will no doubt succeed, so I have no problem whatsoever for troops to be around the vicinity to be able to take quick and as immediate action as they can, rather than let more innocent people die whilst armed response police arrive.

Don't forget that the police in France are armed, yet their Government and people still want the army there as well.

Does having the army on the street impinge on my Britishness or civil liberties - not for me it doesn't.

The government has eyes (cctv) and ears (phone monitoring) on us anyway and we still walk around freely, so a presence of troops on the street is more assuring to me rather than be worrying about us becoming more of a Big Brother state.

Anybody got any views about this?

I don't see why not, a lot of what the army do is humanitarian work or peace keeping so it fits in with their wider remit.

They didn't take long to round up the escaped cons in the British Virgin Islands, I would expect they would have limited powers to detain rather than arrest.

On the down side the army is shrinking in size so do they have the manpower to contribute full time whilst carrying out there existing duties.

Guess we will have to introduce national service if they need the extra manpower.

It's a win / win.

Bring back Dad's Army. We could all join.

On the one hand armed forces or armed police don't deter terrorism in Spain, Germany or France  - or the UK as Northern Ireland showed.
On the other hand we have a huge resource that us taxpayers have paid for and is underutilised so if there is a meaningful role they can undertake I wouldn't be averse to it, but it all depends on how it was done.