WE suffered yet another terrorist assault aimed right at the heart of our country this week.

Yet if anything ought to have been learned from these armed struggles of past and present it should be this: keep your campaigns democratic, peaceful and non-violent, accept the results as given and move on.

We also witnessed the chair of the junior doctors committee, Dr Jeeves Wijesuriya, and a Conservative minister, Tobias Ellwood, both trying to save a fatally wounded police officer; members of two different organisations that rarely see eye to eye united by a national crisis trying to save life.

At the same time there was a debate going on in Scotland seeking to stoke the fire of an increasingly bitter division once again.

The PM should nip this in the bud immediately by holding a snap referendum in Scotland with a simple question: Should a second Scottish independence referendum be held before the United Kingdom leaves the European Union?

The answer will most likely be no and hence the mandate claimed by the SNP to demand it will evaporate into dust.

Dr Scott Marmion, Woodthorpe, York