I’M not alone in worrying this government doesn’t take the safety of its citizens seriously, especially those of us who live in big cities.

I’m willing to bet that the intelligence services have been pleading for years for the extra resources David Cameron has promised them this week.

Let’s hope the extra 1,900 staff can now be recruited in time to stop what occurred in Paris happening in one of our cities in the next few months.

In the meantime, we should all be demanding – loudly – that each chief constable in the UK tells us whether the cuts the government is imposing on them threatens their force’s ability to keep us safe from terrorist attacks.

This is still a democracy, and we have the right to know whether or not our government is failing in its first duty: to protect its citizens.

Also, if there were ever a need for public information films, it’s now.

Ordinary people need to be armed – not with weapons, but with knowledge about what to look for in the way of strange behaviour in others.

This is when it pays to be suspicious and carry a camera phone, rather than a gun as in America, where paranoia can lead to more innocent lives being lost.

Colin Henson, Ullswater, York