More police needed

Does anyone now doubt that we need more police?

Raising the alert state to Critical has allowed 1000 soldiers to be put on the streets, yet while Theresa May was Home Secretary she cut the police in England and Wales by 20,000.

Labour plans to recruit 10,000 to reverse half that cut, but the Conservatives oppose that because it would cost money. Spending that money would also allow the Scottish Government to give more money to Police Scotland.

I would rather spend the money to make us safer. Soldiers on our streets is some- thing we should not be seeing in the UK.

ANNE WIMBERLEY Belmont Road, Edinburgh

D Mason ( Letters, 29 May) says that in preventing terror attacks, we can rely on the “strength of the UK police forces, the UK armed forces and the UK intelligence services”. These would be the police forces who lost 20,000 officers under Theresa May’s watch as Home Secretary, necessitating the deployment of armed forces on English streets, and the intelligence services who were warned five times that the suicide bomber Salman Abedi was a danger to the public?

GILL TURNER Derby Street, Edinburgh