Murder in Mottram

The murder of two policewomen in Mottram in the South Pennines east of Manchester has led to calls for the police to be armed and for those who kill police officers to face the death penalty.

Whatever you think of the death penalty in general, it seems unlikely that it would deter criminals from shooting at police, especially those who are cornered and desperate after a long manhunt and looking at spending the rest of their life in prison.

The call for the police to be routinely armed is equally misguided. Not only would it not stop incidents like this week's, it would also inevitably lead to more incidents like the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 in which the police kill unarmed people.