Britain’s proud tradition of unarmed police

SIR – Despite the tragic murder of Pc Keith Palmer and three bystanders in last week’s terrorist attack in Westminster, such incidents are mercifully rare in Britain.

This event certainly does not justify the routine arming of every police officer, advocated by Charles James (Letters, March 25). Such an action would give the terrorists another small victory.

I am sure I am not alone in recognising the prompt and proportionate response from the armed officer who challenged and dealt with the attacker.

Contrast this with the not infrequent over-reaction by overenthusiastic and over-armed police forces in many other countries.

We should be proud in Britain to have such well-trained armed police officers to call on when the circumstances require it, and equally proud that we do not need them routinely armed everywhere. Long may this continue. Richard Packer Westcott, Surrey SIR – It is quite right that the Government is considering laws that could lead to companies such as Google and Facebook being prosecuted for failing to remove extremist content (report, March 25).

No doubt they will scream censorship, but these companies make vast sums of money by using algorithms instead of people to manage their services. Robots are not able to distinguish tasteful from distasteful content, especially when cleverly crafted by the originator.

Internet companies will just have to go back to employing adjudicators to monitor content, and take the hit on their profits. Dr David Cottam Montauriol, Lot-et-Garonne, France