The parallels with the 1980s are everywhere; in the burnt-out buildings, the looting, the anger of an apparently disenfranchised youth and the agonising over what caused an urban uprising which police have labelled the worst disorder in living memory.

There is one significant difference, however. During the riots of the 1980s, when Brixton and Toxteth burned and PC Keith Blakelock was hacked down with a machete as he fled for his life in Broadwater Farm, the police could count on the full support of the government. Margaret Thatcher was in power and the police were seen as an unquestioning arm of the state.

On Tuesday as David Cameron sits around the table with the home secretary, Theresa May, and senior police officers the ambience will not be a warm one. Relations between the country's top police officers and the Conservative leadership are at an all-time low, with senior Tory sources briefing against the country's top officers and they in turn speaking openly of the "stupidity" of government policy.

so this, and articles like it would point towards police being given  extra powers to assuage their  problems?

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The summonses to arms and the next centre of rioting have been made through Twitter; it is planned, not spontaneous.

There has been much discussion of this, reporters have been asking for these twitter messages, but there has been no sign of them tracking them down. On the other hand, there has been a large suggestion that the majority of  this happening through Blackberry messaging, numerous reporters requesting BBM messages in confidence, and through those going out to sites where current activity is occurring.

One would have to ask, what a group of poor kids are doing communicating through Blackberries? and why they need its more secure messaging system, and that could add to your friends thesis


Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Point 9 might as well read "We will be greeted on a carpet of rose petals".

It tells us far more about the "certainties" they impose on the world than it does about what is really happening.

keep to the Fen Causeway

And I think articles like the Telegraph one ceebs and Helen have pointed to remind us that there are the makings of a lost generation out there and they could get heavily involved with these riots because they have not much to lose...

Following the London riots, the media have been quick to say the looting was the work of an organised gang of thugs, even a network of gangs working together. The truth is more complex. Mark Duggan was a member of the Star gang. Made up of less than 10 members, it had a notorious reputation for being armed, dealing Class A drugs and intent on making money. It was affiliated to larger, older gangs in the area known as the Tottenham Man Dem or the Farm Boys, with around 30 members each from different generations.

Given the cut-off nature of Broadwater Farm Estate, the gang members there are close-knit. They do not attack members of their own community. They all grew up together and remain in touch with previous generations. They also protect the estate like a fortress against rivals like Edmonton in the north, the Wood Green "Mob" to the west.

In Tottenham, as in other parts of inner cities in the UK, one of the key trends is the lowering of the age group involved in gang activity. Younger and younger kids are becoming involved. It is likely that young kids from outside the area, alerted by BlackBerry instant messages, arrived to loot the shops. One eyewitness from the community told me how he was driving in the area with his family and could see young kids he recognised but they were "so angry and emotional" he decided not to engage with them. "They saw the burning car and it gave them an adrenaline rush. They were spurred on by a chance to put one over on the police, maybe for the only time in their lives."

Some kids who looted Foot Locker later boasted about the boxes of trainers they had in their house. They do not fit the profile of organised senior gang members. A source close to the gang community, with a background in armed robbery, told me: "If senior gang members were involved, they would not be interested in just trainers and TVs. They'd take out the bank, the safes and tills from H&M and Foot Locker. They would break into the bookies."

A network of gangs at work is also unlikely, as rivals gang members entering Tottenham territory risk reprisals. "If they saw someone who had done something to their family, they would not hold back just because a riot was going on," my source told me. "The kids who turned up have nothing in common with each other except that they were throwing stones at the police. Young people looking for excitement."

It is (highly unofficially) in the police's interests to let the riot spread somewhat, to see how many rioters the drug barons can bring onto the streets, to see how many of them the police can photograph.

According to David Turner QC, who specialises in professional liability, the situation does not need to be officially described as a riot for the Public Order Act 1986 to kick in. Section 10 provides that the terms "riot" and "riotously" in the Riot Act 1886 is when "12 or more persons who are present together use or threaten unlawful violence for a common purpose and the conduct of them (taken together) is such as would cause a person of reasonable firmness present to fear for his personal safety, each of the persons using unlawful violence for the common purpose is guilty of riot."

Under the 1886 Act, the Metropolitan Police Authority will be liable to pay compensation to those whose property has been damaged, destroyed or stolen in the rioting within London borders, but claims have to be made within 14 days after the day when the damage, destruction or theft occurred.

Sign of the times: sales of aluminium baseball bats up 5,000% in last 24h over at amazon.co.uk/gp/movers-and-... via tehgraun

I lived at the top of Crystal Palace park for a year and a half when I moved back to London from Cairo at the end of the 1990s. Couldn't afford to live closer in, so commuted from there to work in the centre. Commuting was one of the reasons I quit my (safe, government) job 18 months later and moved to the US. Croydon was soul-destroying then, but not as grungy and run-down as you describe it here.

On my last few visits to Austerity Britain(TM) I have been struck by both increasingly visible poverty and increasing electronic surveillance, particularly in urban areas. Public spaces are tense, fearful, surveilled. You can't pull out a camera at a station. But their cameras are watching you from several angles. It's not healthy at all. Orwellian, alienated.

Some on Twitter etc have been evoking the start of the Thatcher era. It strikes me that what Thatcher started, her successors have been working to complete. She proclaimed that `there is no such thing as society' and then did all she could to make that true. Community, solidarity, egalitarianism - all dying or dead, for the most part. I suspect if you could ask the rioters what they're doing, they would give some variation on a nihilist theme. Why destroy? Because they can. We have trained our young people to be acquisitive, atomized, unempathetic.

There is no evidence that Mark Duggan opened fire at police before he was shot dead, ballistic test results say #londonriots

MT @Lord_Credo: BNP: Britain rocked by angry black gangs http://bit.ly/qCJIPp Word has it GMP is following Griffin's tweets very closely.

Walking home, I observe across parts of Islington, Clerkenwell and the City that everything is closing early, pubs are open but clearly have the feel of emptiness.

The whole route is one that I would estimate will not see any rioting (going by the riots so far and my guess from covering things as a photographer in the past) but still a sense of tension and people battening down...

Waterstone's employee just said on the news: "we'll stay open, if they steal some books they might learn something"

Reuters reports: Iran urged Britain on Tuesday to avoid using force to suppress riots that have rocked London.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the British government should "exercise restraint", avoid using violence and instead "talk to protesters and listen to their requests", the official IRNA news agency reported.

A member of Iran's parliament, Hossein Ebrahimi, told the semi-official Fars news agency that Britain should allow a delegation of human rights monitors to examine the situation.

Hey BNP, guess what? the MUSLIMS are protecting YOUR country. Yeah that's right. JUST like the war times... twitpic.com/63534y

BBC News understands that the CO19 officers involved in the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan in Tottenham last Thursday discharged their firearms because they believed there was a threat to human life. Their guidelines allow them to shoot in such circumstances. Another key witness, the driver of the minicab in which Mark Duggan was travelling, has yet to give his description of what happened. He is understood to be in a severe state of shock.

Images of damaged buildings in Croydon and Tottenham show the full force of the riots on local communities. Move the slider to see the effect on each property

Back in the summer of 2010, as Chancellor George Osborne announced a swingeing package of public sector cuts, many journalists wondered why Britain, unlike other European countries, appeared phlegmatic about such severe austerity measures. Was this is simply an example of the British "stiff-upper lip", that stoical Britons don"t "do" civil disobedience?

These are questions that the past year has rendered ridiculous. London has seen serious riots break out at student demonstrations in November and December 2010, while peaceful mass demonstration organised by the Trades Union Congress in March of this year descended into violence as groups of demonstrators occupying Trafalgar Square clashed with police.

The looting and arson that has scarred London and now other English cities represents the most frightening apparent manifestation of this public discontent. Yet, unlike the student riots or mass demonstrations, there are seemingly few precedents in British history for the kinds of violent disturbances the country has witnessed in the past few days. Indeed, it is the lack of a clear context (social, historical or otherwise) that makes them so terrifying.

The Central Housing Office in Salford, Greater Manchester, is on fire. Fire crews are said to be at the scene.

The photograph below is of Bristol men rioting in Old Market Street on February 23, 1932, as some 3,000 unemployed engaged in running battles with the police as they tried to march down to the city centre, led by the National Unemployed Workers Movement. Police baton-charged protesters outside Trinity police station and along Old Market.

Thanks very much to Kathryn Mottram for the photo, taken by a local press photographer, which family lore believes shows her grandfather, who was  an inspector in the Bristol Police Force at the time. The Mottram family  have a sneaking suspicion that he may be the police officer on the right of the photo with the flat peaked hat, as worn by inspectors, as opposed to all the other baton-wielding pointed hat constables.

BBC Radio Mcr reporting it's heard its OB car has been set on fire

As for the police, if they're really looking to gain control over this trade then surely they're not just after more power. This trade won't go away by just throwing a bunch of cops at it. If they do succeed in driving out the heads of the operation they'll set up a power vacuum into which either new recruits will come from inside the industry (re: power struggle) or the police themselves will take over complete with the financial gains that come with protecting this market.

Police tactics not suited to 12+ seats of disorder - time to re-think. Police also need to be part of community again http://t.co/BHximfV

Ian back safe from west brom. Tells of hearing old woman waving stick at balaclavad rioter shouting 'I know your mother' #birminghamriots

Senior police source says officers were told to stand back, wait and monitor - tactic now reversed after public anger at looting

The fire has now been extinguished and at least eight people have been arrested, the force said.

There are so far no reports of any injuries. Earlier 10 people were arrested after youths climbed on to the roof of Nottingham High School.

In another incident, two males aged 17 and 18 were also arrested earlier in the evening after rocks were thrown at Bulwell Police Station.

Mark Hughes By my reckoning in London, West Mids, Manchester, Liverpool etc... About 1,000 people have been arrested. In four days. #riots #ukriots

Gloucestershire Police confirm they are dealing with a "gathering" in the Brunswick area of Gloucester

Shit, @sangattv breaking the news of two deaths in Birmingham, now. Things look very tense, as you'd expect. They're switching off.

sangaatv are the Birmingham based Sikh? (i think) tv satation, theyve had a mobile crew covering the police and riots all night, and havehad the most in-depth coverage of what has been occurring. didn't see it myself, as id just decided to crash, but found this on my phone while getting to bed.

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

The perpetrators offer the excuse that they are underprivileged. Why not let us take them to a real poverty stricken area like Somalia and let them work with the aid agencies to see what real hardship and lack of opportunity means? Hopefully, they will recognise the opportunities that are available to them in UK. It is up to them to work for it.

So silly...There was someone commenting here on TV like this: Earlier those kids (most left school and have no qualifications) had chance to work in supermarkets etc. for low wages but still work. Now university educated people are applying for supermarket jobs so those kids have no chance".
People that have nothing to lose will become violent. We knew there will be war in Bosnia (all tho citizens really did not want it and avoided it even when war in Croatia was well on) when they couldn't buy bag of detergent for month's salary...

Politicians fiddle expenses and rob the public.
Newspapers froth with fraud while their owners buy politicians and police.
Police freely accept bribes selling information of murdered children.
Banks cheat and rob the country because they are "too big" to fail.

This is the example of the high and mighty, lets count the cost of these riots and do a comparison, i bet it's not in the billions!

Really how they expect to have "responsible" young generation? They also watch TV...

The shocking acts of looting may not be political, but they nevertheless say something about the beaten-down lives of the rioters

...

I think it's just about possible that you could see your actions refashioned into a noble cause if you were stealing the staples: bread, milk. But it can't be done while you're nicking trainers, let alone laptops. In Clapham Junction, the only shop left untouched was Waterstone's, and the looters of Boots had, unaccountably, stolen a load of Imodium. So this kept Twitter alive all night with tweets about how uneducated these people must be and the condition of their digestive systems. While that palled after a bit, it remains the case that these are shopping riots, characterised by their consumer choices: that's the bit we've never seen before. A violent act by the authorities, triggering a howl of protest - that bit is as old as time. But crowds moving from shopping centre to shopping centre? Actively trying to avoid a confrontation with police, trying to get in and out of JD Sports before the "feds" arrive? That bit is new.

Media baffled by random looting of immodium - have we all forgotten the most shocking scene in Trainspotting already?

One day, Renton decides to quit heroin. Realizing he needs one last high, he buys opium rectal suppositories from Mikey Forrester (Irvine Welsh), which immediately give him diarrhea. After using "the worst toilet in Scotland", he quickly discovers that he has lost the opium suppositories and fishes them out of the polluted toilet bowl. After this "final hit", he locks himself into a cheap hotel room to endure withdrawal.

1055:   BBC Monitoring

Libyan foreign ministry spokesman Khalid Ka'im has called on world governments to take action over the unrest in the UK. David Cameron has lost legitimacy and "must go", Libya's official news agency Jana reports. Libya "demands that the international community not stand with arms folded in the face of this gross aggression against the rights of the British people, who are demanding its right to rule its country", the report said.

1102:

Nine out of 10 British adults say police should be able to be use water cannon on rioters and one third support use of live ammunition, according to a YouGov poll of 2,534 British adults for the Sun.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNtvxc2-E_Y&feature=related

It really was the end for him sun but I will never understand why they put that beautiful Parliament building on fire and I felt said because of it. As much as I hated government it wasn't their building. It should be peoples building...

But crowd mentality is so strange...

Young people take control of the streets in the riotous aftermath of Thursday's police killing, which created a tipping point in communities, where a lack of jobs and social services has given angry youth nowhere to vent frustrations [EPA]

London riots: Neighbours mount anti-gang patrols amid fears of far-right agitation - Telegraph

Stephen Lennon, the leader of the far-right EDL, said he spent yesterday in Enfield and claim to have 100 supporters on the streets of the town.

Lennon said the group had encouraged all its members to take part in street clean-ups. He said members would launch street patrols in Bristol, Manchester, Luton and Leicestershire over the coming days in an attempt to talk young men out of rioting.

"If they tried to smash up Luton town centre I'd know every one of them. I can go into any working class community and talk to them."

Footage emerged last night of a gang of white men chasing an alleged looter through the streets of Enfield. One bystander shouts: "We're chasing blacks."

I think people were so frightened because something had been loosed and was on display, which was new to many people - and that was the sight of very large numbers of people, mainly young men, who were no longer constrained by our culture. The role of culture in making British society what it is, and in giving it its remarkable strengths, is not often remarked upon, but it is enormous. We are, or we have been, a culture-bound society: we have been governed largely by informal constraints on our behaviour.

This is in sharp contrast to a society like that of the United States, for example, which is largely a rule-bound society...

...We have plenty of rules and plenty of laws like every other nation, but what has held British society together, given its relative stability and unique values, has been culture. It is clear that there is a growing section of young men and women who have been so socialised that this culture means nothing to them and this will have to be recognised. This is probably not something that policy can deal with; it cannot be ameliorated, it can only be confronted.

It does not mean that we cannot have civil governance, but it will increasingly have to be based on rules which are enforced, rather than on universally accepted norms of behaviour...

Why do I have to read such a conservative look at the past through rose-tinted eyes, with a conservative conclusion that Britain needs more police state, and an unspoken anti-immigrant line throughout, in The Independent? Regarding the unspoken anti-immigrant line, he mentions the 1976 Notting Hill Carnival Riot as the supposedly first sign of the constraints of British culture ignored. Who rioted then? Here is the contemporary BBC:

BBC ON THIS DAY | 30 | 1976: Notting Hill Carnival ends in riot

The trouble is believed to have started after police tried to arrest a pickpocket near Portobello Road on the main carnival route.

Several black youths went to the pickpocket's aid and within minutes the disturbance escalated.

...At one stage a group of black youths were seen moving up Westbourne Park road smashing windows.

Gangs of white youths were also said to have been involved in the violence.

...and the BBC in 2006:

BBC NEWS | UK | England | London | Remembering the Notting Hill riot

Tempers were boiling among young black men over police use of the "sus" law, under which anybody could be stopped, searched and held, even if only suspected of planning a crime.

Anticipating some trouble, 3,000 police officers turned up - ten times the amount of previous, relatively peaceful, events.

This raised the tension, but what sparked the riot is still open to question.

White fascist gangs were said to be at large. Police said it began after attempts to arrest a pickpocket.

...Professor Chris Mullard, chairman of organisers London Notting Hill Carnival Ltd... sees the riot as important in the history of race relations, giving rise as it did to the implementation of the Race Relations Act 1976 which prohibited racial discrimination.

Nice. Now, what was the inspiration for the Notting Hill Carnival in the first place? It was the previous most serious riot in London:

1958 Notting Hill race riots - Wikipedia

The Notting Hill race riots were a series of racially-motivated riots that took place in London, England over several nights in late August and early September 1958.

Tell me those 'British cultural conventions' were respected by the 1958 rioters.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Dear Mr & Mrs Cameron,

Why did you never take the time to teach your child basic morality?

As a young man, he was in a gang that regularly smashed up private property. We know that you were absent parents who left your child to be brought up by a school rather than taking responsibility for his behaviour yourselves. The fact that he became a delinquent with no sense of respect for the property of others can only reflect that fact that you are terrible, lazy human beings who failed even in teaching your children the difference between right and wrong. I can only assume that his contempt for the small business owners of Oxford is indicative of his wider values.

Even worse, your neglect led him to fall in with a bad crowd.

The Church of Scientology is using the aftermath of the UK riots to recruit vulnerable people for their controversial sect, Political Scrapbook can reveal.

A "Scientology Volunteer Force" appeared at the cleanup operation in Birmingham City Centre this morning, purporting to be there to help sweep up. In reality, they stayed for around ten minutes - just long enough to convince members of the public to come back to their centre and "learn more" about the organisation.

According to cleanup helper @BrumProtester, the five volunteers, who wore the sect's trademark yellow jackets, each left with a member of the public in the direction of their nearby recruitment office.

The controversial sect routinely send "Volunteer Ministers" to recruit members in the immediate aftermath of disasters. They arrive bearing supplies, food and water, then begin offering medically dubious "therapies" known as "assists" to people suffering from extreme shock.

've felt a lot of emotions over the past few days ranging from joy to grief to anger. It's been amazing to see people fighting back against the police and it's been equally horrific to see damage to people's homes and small shops, let alone the deaths in Birmingham yesterday.

However, today I am just angry. I feel utterly sickened at the attitude of large numbers of people who are suddenly supporting the police, who support the army being brought in, who want to see water canon and plastic bullets used on the streets.

I am livid with rage at people who have never experienced police harassment not even attempting to understand the brutalisation this causes. I know the effect it has had on me, and I've only experienced it through the choice of being politically active which is nothing compared to it happening on a daily basis because of your skin colour or where you live.

Not only did the cops kill Mark Duggan, they tried to spin a story about him shooting first, the same way they manufactured lies about Charles de Menzes and Ian Tomlinson amongst others. They showed utter contempt for his family by not communicating with them, and the demands of peaceful protesters to speak to a senior officer were ignored.

"What the looting shows is that prosperity doesn't trickle down, but greed does"

I am not cynical about politicians. I think they are largely a hard working bunch of earnest people who genuinely want to make the country a better place. I do not begrudge them holidays. Or expenses. Some get carried away by the hint of power, and its trappings. Many treat the media with contempt. But I understand this. I am also well used to politicians being powerless over big issues. This is not because they don't understand the problem - but because they are up against more powerful forces, world opinion, market behaviour, lack of resources and much more. However listening to politicians trying to explain the riots has begged a question that doesn't usually spring to mind : do they have the faintest idea what is going on?  All week I have acknowledged that the rarity of British rioting naturally makes it hard to understand. And I claim no unique insight of my own. But many politicians are trying to have it both ways : ask them why it is happening and they say this is "sheer criminality".  Ask them again and they say "there will be plenty of time to consider the wider issues but right now we need to stop the criminal behaviour". What they seem to mean is "I have no idea why it is happening but I really need it to stop".

David Cameron has now attempted his analysis within twenty four hours of returning from Tuscany - parts of Britain are "sick". By "sick" we assume this is not an attempt at getting down with da kidz, but a genuine diagnosis. The Prime Minister blamed a "complete lack of responsibility, a lack of proper parenting, a lack of proper upbringing, a lack of proper ethics, a lack of proper morals." He went on to say it is about "discipline in schools" and "making sure we have a welfare system that doesn't reward idleness".

The last time Dominic Noonan was filmed it was as the subject of Donal McIntyre's 2007 documentary 'A Very British Gangster'. This time he is caught engaging looters in conversation in Manchester city centre yesterday.

Noonan has more than 40 convictions for a wide range of offences including armed robbery, police assault, attacks on prison officers, deception, firearms, prison escape and fraud, and has spent 22 years in prison.

In the footage it is unclear what role, if any, Mr Noonan is playing in the looting but the young men he approaches smile and appear at ease in his company.

Last month schools and colleges across the country broke up for the summer, leaving children and teenagers with six weeks of freedom. For many parents, finding child-care during the holidays is difficult and as a result, youngsters can be left to their own devices while adults are at work, especially as funding for youth services is cut.

Professor John Pitts, an advisor to several local authorities in London on gangs and violent crime issued a stark warning to government last week about the risks involved when closing services for young people.

He said: "If you cut summer activities for young people, as night follows day you will see an increase in crime. My anxiety is that those gang members who were in school will now be on the streets. Coupled with cuts to the services they use and fewer youth workers who can mediate, those streets will be a lot more dangerous and I would expect the level of crime and violence to rise."

Late last year, in response to the student protests that saw Charlie Gilmour swinging from the centotaph (16 months) and a Rolls Royce carrying Charles and Camilla nearly everted, I wrote a parody of John Betjeman's Varsity Rag which contained the following lines:

It was almost like the Bullingdon as we bayed for broken glass,
For the rioting student nowadays is a better sort of class,

It seems I wasn't the only one to see a parallel between those events and the non-political boisterousness indulged in by members of Oxford University's Bullingdon Club, a fraternity in which both David Cameron and Boris Johnson were enthusiastic participants. Tom Scorza in his blog A Short Introduction to Cycling offered the following quote, attributed to Cameron and said to come from the "Oxford Book of Quotations":

"Things got a bit out of hand & we'd had a few drinks. We smashed the place up and Boris set fire to the toilets." David Cameron, 7th June 1986.

Over the past couple of days this pseudo-quote has been Tweeted and re-Tweeted. Shorn of its tell-tale reference to the non-existent Oxford Book of Quotations, it has a certain superficial plausibility,

Most people from richer areas, who have jobs or who have a good chance of getting a good job, will not riot in the next day or few because their retaining their job or job chance through not getting a criminal record is greater than any of the other incentives I have listed above...
It's as simple as that.

People from poorer, more deprived areas and backgrounds are rioting for different, shifting motivations, but they are doing so because they do not have enough invested in what the state can offer them to outweigh the benefits of that rioting.

That is, the state has temporarily failed, because a significant group of people in London have decided it is just not worth living within its jurisdiction.

What we do about it is a different matter, though for myself I think upping the incentive for more people to accept the state's jurisdiction is a pretty good idea.  Nevertheless, the logic of the state's failure should be inescapable, especially for right-wingers who believe that rational choice theory (RCT) is the best guide for the operation of society.

However, I suspect many of those that believe RCT is a good guiding philosophy for themselves and "the markets" will prefer not to extend thee same conception of basic human characteristics to young Londoners making their own calculations tonight.  They'll prefer to keep on calling them "mindless"

Community leaders appeal for calm after three British Asians rammed by carload of suspected looters in Winson Green

...

West Midlands police arrested a man near the scene and recovered a vehicle, which forensics experts are examining. They later launched a murder inquiry.

Groups of residents in Winson Green, the inner-city area where the men were killed as they tried to protect local businesses in the early hours of Wednesday, openly warned of inter-communal violence if the murder inquiry fails to produce rapid results.

The financial crisis, phone hacking and now riots. Where once we may have felt rage, now we can feel only impotence

...

The most unsettling reports have been of policemen standing back, apparently powerless to stop people as they smash and burn and steal. It's deeply unnerving to see those we expect to protect us incapable and in retreat. Read the comment threads and Twitter feeds, with their demands that "this must stop", or even for looters to be "shot on sight", and you see the signs of impotent rage, the desperate desire for somebody to do something.

The trouble is, we're getting used to this sensation. The news story competing for space on the bulletins was the world financial crisis, with the stock markets in London and across Europe fluctuating wildly. At one point the FTSE was down by 5%, coming after previous massive falls in London and New York. Once again, those in charge seem powerless to resist.

Funds held by English police authorities could be "decimated" by claims made for damage caused by the riots in English towns and cities.

Under the Riot (Damages) Act of 1886, insurers and the uninsured could claim costs from police authorities.

The Association of Police Authorities (APA) described the Riot Act as an "out of date law".

But the Association of British Insurers (ABI) said the regulations had worked well for 125 years.

They are a catastrophe for communities traumatised by looting, arson and petrol bombs - in many cases, such as Tottenham and Hackney, among the poorest areas in Britain. "It's poor people like who suffer because of these riots," one young woman told me just off Mare Street - where the worst of Monday's rioting in Hackney took place - her obviously shaken child clutching her leg.

They are a catastrophe for residents of London, Birmingham, Manchester and elsewhere, who feel terrorised in their own cities and even besieged in their own homes. Like all Londoners, I was pretty anxious on Monday as I cycled through Hackney at 10pm. There is a disconcerting feeling that trouble could flare up anywhere, at any time. Normal life still feels suspended.

They are a catastrophe for those who took part in the rioting and looting. I won't make a habit of quoting David Cameron, but when he told rioters that "you are potentially ruining your own lives, too", he had a point. There will be irresistible demands for the harshest possible sentences; Westminster council is already threatening to evict tenants involved in the disorder; and those who have taken part in the disturbances - on however big or small a scale - may well pay for the rest of their lives.

http://maptube.org/map.aspx?m=ol&s=bBHFGlAlRcsKCSaXwRjAplwcCnYMCkid&k=http://orca.casa.ucl.a c.uk/~ollie/misc/londonriots_verified_20110809_1514.kml

Any idiot can face a crisis - it's day to day living that wears you out.

Spilling out in the road beside the Jet garage, where three Asian men were killed the previous night, around 300 Muslim and Sikh men gathered to debate how they should respond to the tragedy.

...After prayers and a silent vigil, men took turns to express their views. There had been fears that the meeting, held after last prayer of the day - Isha'a - would be a flashpoint, sparking a further round of rioting and looting.

It was clear from snatches of conversation that there were some in the crowd - a minority - who wanted to reap revenge on the black community, whom they held responsible for the deaths. They did not prevail.

It is hard to explain how the men gathered in the dark reached the conclusion they did. There was no leader; the forum was open for people to speak and disagree.

The consensus among most - after half an hour - was that a planned march should not take place, in part because it would be disrespectful to the families of those who died. Not everyone agreed - and it was impossible to know whether dissenters would break away later in the night and, in breach of the general will, seek retaliation.

BRITAIN was last night urged to avoid the schoolboy error of thinking people like Melanie Phillips may have been right all along.

including the line

"And of course later today the looters will be condemned in Parliament by a bunch of people who stole money by accident.

Equally, to suggest human rights get in the way of effective policing is simply wrong. The proportionate use of force up to and including lethal force is both lawful and human rights compliant.

Following the violent, disgusting and utterly unacceptable events that began in London last Saturday night and continued to spread across England for several days, bloggers, tweeters, commentators, pundits, politicians, random acquaintances of old Oxbridge friends of Newsnight researchers and ordinary people with functioning larynxes, Facebook accounts, or both, from all over the world and beyond, have been queuing up to provide what our American friends would describe as their 'take' on it all. Literally hundreds of thousands of words and images have been written, spoken, uploaded, photoshopped or typed out in a big hurry about the riots and the looting. All in vain.

I say 'in vain' because it is, or it at least should be, quite clear that now is not the time for speculation.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024690/UK-riots-2011-Britains-liberal-intelligentsia-smas hed-virtually-social-value.html

...predictable outcome of a three-decade liberal experiment which tore up virtually every basic social value.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2024690/UK-riots-2011-Britains-liberal-intelligentsia-smas hed-virtually-social-value.html#ixzz1UmnvnH9U
 

David Cameron is on a collision course with the police after the government used an emergency Commons debate on the English riots to issue a point-by-point dissection of the police's "insufficient" tactics during the week.

The prime minister praised the bravery of the police but said they had made a major miscalculation when violence first erupted in Tottenham on Saturday night after a demonstration over the shooting of Mark Duggan. Cameron said: "Police chiefs have been frank with me about why this happened. Initially the police treated the situation too much as a public order issue - rather than essentially one of crime. The truth is that the police have been facing a new and unique challenge with different people doing the same thing - basically looting - in different places all at the same time."

But a few hours later, home secretary Theresa May, who opened the lengthy Commons debate on the riots on Thursday, warned that the failure of the police to contain violence in the early part of the week jeopardised a core British tradition. "Policing by consent is the British way," May told MPs. "But the police only retain the confidence of the wider community if they are seen to take clear and robust action in the face of open criminality. On Monday night it was clear that simply there were not enough officers on duty."

No discussion that the police3 held back on purpose, on hopes that it will get more powers. hough it seems at least they can achieve the undoing of the police cutbacks.

As for the Tories, the article lists their proposals for hash measures: a shopping list of lunatic right demands.

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

Richard Mannington Bowes, the man left in a critical condition after being attacked while trying to put out a fire during riots in the west London suburb of Ealing, has died, Scotland Yard said early on Friday.

Bowes, 68, died in hospital last night after he was set upon in Springbridge Road during Monday's disorder. The Metropolitan police said a murder investigation had been launched.

Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane, of the Met's Homicide and Serious Crime Command, said: "This was a brutal incident that resulted in the senseless killing of an innocent man. I still need the assistance of the community who may have witnessed the attack on Richard to come forward and provide information or images they may have recorded on mobile devices. This information could be crucial in catching his killer."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-magistrates-court-list?intcmp=239

Also age and unemployment...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/11/uk-riots-courtrooms-country

The UN's first ever report on the state of childhood in the industrialized West made unpleasant reading for many of the world's richest nations. But none found it quite so hard to swallow as the Brits, who, old jokes about English cooking aside, discovered that they were eating their own young.

According to the Unicef report, which measured 40 indicators of quality of life - including the strength of relationships with friends and family, educational achievements and personal aspirations, and exposure to drinking, drug taking and other risky behavior - British children have the most miserable upbringing in the developed world. American children come next, second from the bottom.

Point on the radio re council-house evictions: "It's a form of punishment that can only be imposed on the poorest ppl in society"#NotMyWords

At 6ft 3in, with a loose gait and a large kit bag slung over his shoulder, 18-year-old Chavez Campbell is a striking figure as he walks past the boarded-up shops in Wood Green, north London. Last Saturday, riots erupted here, rampaging youths shattered shopfronts and filled their arms with anything they could grab.

A week before it began, Campbell, in an interview with the Guardian about cuts to youth services, predicted what would happen. Asked what he thought the future held, he said, simply: "There'll be riots."

Looking at his words again, he said: "I did see the riots coming and the government should have seen it coming, too. Jobs are hard to get and, when they do become available, youths don't get the jobs. There is nothing to do, they are closing youth clubs so the streets are just crazy. They are full of people who have no ambitions, or have ambitions but can't fulfil them."

The video of the interview is embedded in the article. The guy is very articulate (though he uses an accent barely understandable for me).

_{*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

What a difference a riot makes: bit.ly/nCfoSV (blinding, suspended sentence) bit.ly/oxuvZQ (wearing stolen shorts)

The response to the recent wave of riots in English cities has exposed the ethical bankruptcy of both liberal left and neo-liberal right in English culture. (Significantly, there were no riots in Scotland, and but one isolated incident in Wales.)

In the case of the left, a latent callousness and authoritarianism has been laid bare. Many London liberals were quick to call for draconian police responses once they were given the impression - in part by exaggeration in the "quality" media - that their own civic precincts might be under threat.
...Thus some on the left at least initially supported new actions by Conservative local authorities to evict from council rented properties the parents of rioters. But as the conservative Peter Hitchens has pointed out, this would appear to violate a fundamental principle of British law, which holds that you cannot be held responsible for the criminal offences of others. Equally, a withdrawal of benefits from rioters implies an arbitrarily-imposed double punishment that lacks any real legal sanction.

The rioters share with the nation a problem that is at base ethical: if the young and the learning are to blame then the older and instructing (at every social level) must be all the more to blame.