I don't really care which government (or all of them) you choose to blame, the fact is that if you choose to believe that what happened this week is down to spontaneous outbursts of pure criminality/greed/biblical retribution and nothing whatsoever to do with social deprivation and a sectioning of society then we shall simply repeat the errors over and over again for the rest of time.

Fair enough, but it was the implied statement that this was the coalitions fault i didn't agree with.

The cuts i think we should worry about are

The 3.4% reduction in spending in the Ministry of Justice
The 1.2% reduction in education (any reduction in this worries me to be honest as the standard isn't high enough as it was)
and the reduction in the CLG Dept (don't know the figures but they were the biggest of all if i recall)

All these are intrinsic to social cohesion and i would think may create more problems than they could solve.

Agree. Hence my enthusiasm for a combination of individual responsibility with serious attempts (and I confess to being unclear how at this stage) to reduce inequality and social discontent.

Social discontent is a very complicated thing. It's causes are numerous, and include cultural, economic and historical factors. They will not be fixed next week, nor even next year.

If you have a house with damp in the cellar and don't fix it for 30 years, by the time you get round to it it will have become a much larger and more expensive problem than it once was, and you'll have only yourself to blame. You need to get rid of the mould, but you also need to improve the environment in which the mould was allowed to develop. I like analogies.

In other considerations, on the theme of the lack of individual responsibility in our social fabric, those looking at the looting might also choose to look more closely at every bank CEO who took a huge bonus while bankrupting half the country (exaggeration, let it go), every MP who helped themselves to some extra expenses, not because they thought it was right but because they thought they could get away with it, every dumbfook who drives their saloon car or 4x4 at 45 through the 30mph zone outside the school near my house, because they probably won't get caught, not to mention every morbidly obese person and smoker who does whatever they like secure in the knowledge that everyone else will pick up the tab.

Still think the rot starts and stops with an "underclass" of masked youths?

Now, if somebody would care to give me a hand down from my soapbox... I know I climbed up here of my own volition, but surely it's your job to get me down again?

The daily mail article linked above does mention a matter that I feel is one of the major contributors to the trouble. Everything that the media has covered recently always has a monetary value. In school, pupils are told to further their studies as much as they can to get a job that earns loads of money. Politicians have now put a price on university education. The government has cut spending (whilst taking a pay rise) which will inevitably affect the "disadvantaged" the most.

There is so much emphasis on money, financial wealth and possessions that social, community and personal wealth is completely overlooked. Afterall, money isn't [iactually[/i real.

The naming of the "underclass" only further alienates and segregates these people. To create a new (only named) lower class of society identifies there is a problem with society but that the men in suits aren't willing to do anything about it.

You can add to that the cuts (was it 15%) to each Police force budget over the next two years, the cuts that Sir Norman Bettison insisted that he'd rather die in a ditch than sack front line police officers, the same cuts that meant that the police in London were unable to field enough officers on the streets on Monday night but had miraculously found an extra 10,000 bodies for the following night after Shiny Dave arrived home from holiday and began beating his chest in Tarzan stylee.

One of my bro-in-law's has been one of those 16000 policing the streets every night this week, he was on Facebook one night when one of my daughters tweeted him to ask why he was facing a rioting mob with a baton in one hand and his iPhone in the other

You've been reading my blog this week haven't you ? [urlhttp://jerrychicken.wordpress.com/2011/08/09/david-comes-back-home/[/url

When your Met Police Commissioner has only been in the job seven days and is only doing it until a better one can be found because the previous one had to resign after corruption and illegal practice allegations, then you know you're in the presence of one of the great hypocrites of all time.

And who says the level of discussion on this board doesn't rise above ting on tables?

I think we've proved that it [ivaries[/i from the level of ting on tables. Whether that variance is up, down or simply off to one side is really a matter of opinion.

I hadn't, but I have now.

I've no doubt, that somewhere there is a very earnest chappy pontificating that we all should have tables to e upon, or we risk the sectioning of Society.....

There are always those that seek to make political capital out of the recent spate of criminal lootings. To make out that these were "riots" caused by cuts to the police budget or that they were a protest against any future cuts is just being mischievous or being politically one eyed.

I agree that there are complicated and deep seated reasons for this criminal behaviour which need to be addressed over time with better education. But what we saw on our TV screens was violent looting and theft based on greed.

IMO the copycat escalation was caused by the sights on TV of the police capitulating to crimes they should have stopped. They watched the crimes unfold with no attempt to arrest those youths responsible. The gangs of criminal youths were one step ahead of the Met and were using the latest smart phones that many of us cannot afford.

The Met got it badly wrong and were playing to the wrong set of rules (ie political unrest plans rather than criminal behaviour plans) The failure of the senior officers to recognise this and change tack was very worrying.

I know the police have a very difficult job to do and they are often unfairly dammed whatever they do. However it will not help prevent future repeats of this sort of thing if we brush these police failures under the carpet and file them away under a file marked "budget cuts"

Whatever the reason for this criminal behaviour we first must make our streets safe. And to do this we need to look at the quality (or lack of) of senior police officers and we should be questioning the direction they have been taking us in

At this stage the cuts are only proposed so you cannot use that as an argument. The reason there were not enough officers on duty was due to the incompetence of the senior officers. The fact that it took "call me Dave" to push the Met into action was a stain on the ability and judgement of senior police officers. If the PM had stayed on holiday then the lootings would have continued till his Easyjet touched down.

The police already had all the powers they needed to deal with the criminal behaviour, including bringing in extra manpower and moving from passive to active response. Their go forward was even worse than the Leeds pack!

But because the senior officers made the major error of assuming the so called copycat riots were because of the police shooting in Tottenham and were unable to identify that the gangs of criminal youths had hijacked the situation having seen the police's pathetic stand back and watch tactics on the TV news. They were outsmarted by a bunch on teenagers on smart phones. Shame the News of the World hackers were not still around!!





I am not having a go at the Constables, as they can only follow intructions. However you would have to say there was a lot of budget wasted in overtime for officers standing around doing nothing. Talk about fiddling while Rome (London) burns.

The proposed cuts to police budgets are in the region of 20% over the next four years which by a startling coincidence equates to almost exactly the same number of police officers who were required to quell the riots on Tuesday - around 16000 front line officers.

Don't be fooled into thinking that there haven't already been cut backs though, many forces have frozen recruitment this year, many will now only recruit via their volunteer community liaison officers in order to squeeze a bit more manpower for little cost, and I know from family members that overtime has been slashed to bare minimum levels particularly in the Met where two of my bro-in-laws serve, indeed one of them has been told that his post will be redundant next year.

That principle of running the service on the bare minimums was one of the reasons why there was such a shortage of officers on the streets on Sunday/Monday, it wasn't necessarily tactics or organisation but a lack of officers available from the normal rota's as the rota's have been adjusted this year to offer best value with minimum cover, my wife spoke to one of her brothers on Wednesday evening when he had just come home from a 15 hour shift, was having something to eat, get changed and then go back out for a night shift, the only thing he was looking forward to was his August pay packet because its been a long time since he had any decent overtime.

I'd have loved to have been a fly on the wall when Cameron met with his police commissioners, virtually the only thing he has had to promise them was more money to cover the massive staffing bill which has given them all a huge lever for negotiations in 2012 - look what happened when we tried to cut costs is all they need to say, and by the way, the levels of policing are still at the Tuesday night levels and will be for some time to come, leave is still cancelled and everyone is still on standby - it hasn't gone away and the considerable bills are racking up.

Police cuts are already in effect recruitment stoped in 2010 and retirements increase so numbers of officers have already reduced.

In public order it takes at least 3 people out of a serial of 8 to arrest and transport one person, and it is a difficult balance. You can't arrest everyone there and then in a riot as no one would be left on the street.

I heard some journalist critisize the the police however it is easy to do sat in a studio and not having petrol bricks and worse thrown at you. Put simply they didn't move to stop riots at some points as they were not enough officers, and to go into a riot situation under manned is making the matter worse as need the numbers to stop the problems

None of what you say in any way excuses a lamentable performance once again from the Met. Their staffing levels are sufficient to have coped with these young criminals had they had the right leadership and focus. They totally failed in their main job of protecting the public, the streets and property.

To say the proposed cuts in the police budget all have to be made from front line officers is political and ludicrous. There are many areas of waste which could be tackled first beginning with the high costs of top of the range vehicles many of which are imported and could easily be replaced with equally effective lesser brands.

The focus of policing long ago moved from prevention, with officers on the beat, to attempting to solve crimes after they have happened, often with high cost detectives that do not detect.

What is plain for all to see is that we are not getting value for money from the existing police budgets. The Met is in a mess with a shocking recent record of police shootings, corruption and incompetance at the highest level.

All of this undermines the fine work done by many of the rank and file in what I acknowledge is a difficult and important job.

Let the battle continue: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 36852.html Even Maggie knew not to tangle with the thin blue line.

Let the battle continue: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 36852.html Even Maggie knew not to tangle with the thin blue line.

Which is exactly the line that Cameron appeared to have had planted in his head on the flight home earlier this week, an opinion which very senior police officers (ie the ones who get to go to Downing St and meet with him) were very keen to rubbish yesterday with their comments on how easy it was for someone to pontificate whilst in Tuscany.





Not all, but certainly some of it - to suggest that 20% of any organisations budget can be easily cut by simply buying cheaper cars is rather naive and in some circumstances will lead to a degradation of services, you might not like to see race tuned police Subaru Impreza's on the motorways but the next time someone undertakes you at 120mph in their daddy's Porsche then don't start looking in your rear view mirror for the following police Ford Fiesta.





What has been plain for all to see over a period of twenty or more years is that the public want to see uniforms on the streets and there is evidence from statistics (but who trusts stats when they prove you wrong) that a uniform on the streets can actually reduce petty crime, but those uniforms come at a high cost, the 6000 officers in London on Sun/Mon would normally have been well able to cope with any normal Sun/Mon night's business (which in London can range from speeding motorists to murder to terrorism) but clearly what they really needed was an extra 10000 officers on standby for when large scale civil unrest occurs, those extra 10000 being borrowed from other forces (some of whom had their own problems to deal with) and by cancelling holidays and scrapping rota's to get bodies on the streets - you can't obtain that instant re-organisation within the hour and whilst politicians have claimed that it was their intervention that made it so, it appears that a different story is emerging (see tvoc's link).

So you tell us - is the world so simple that you can maintain an extra 10000 officers on the street of London (and they are still there and will be for some time) simply by buying cheaper cars, or is it a bit more complicated than that ?

Maybe I was watching a different tv channel to you MacF, but on Sky there was wall to wall live time coverage as the events unfolded.

It clearly showed that in the first couple of days the Met were completely unprepared for the level of criminality. I saw ordinary policemen and women in their normal uniforms, not riot gear , having to do a headless chicken routine up and down the lenght of various High Streets. And when the Riot Squad eventually arrived? They stood around as 50 yards away the looting continued and London burned.

Perhaps it was those self same images that galvanised the PM to kick some plunp Met uniformed butt. The outraged squeals from the Police top brass is entirely predictable. Their lack of tactical nous was there for all to see, and I reckon that as an organisation it rivals the MOD for incompetence.

One phone call to the NI Chief Constable would have told them that 30 years of crowd control had shown the quickest way to clear a street is with water canon and a rolling road of armoured landrovers, backed up with snatch squads. Did I smile when they eventually tried the tactic with their own armoured toyotas after Dave offered up some thoughts? And when it worked were heard to say...."we may try it again"...... No Shit Sherlock!.....I admit to a s

As you rightly pointed out, what the public want to see is a much more visible police presence on the street, and if that means a radical rethink in the structure and deployment of Policing resources, then the sooner such a review is undertaken/implemented the better.

I'm encouraged by the news that the PM has signed up the former police chief of New York as an adviser. The guy has a formidable reputation, and whilst it will put some Chief Constable's noses out of joint, I can only see it as a big plus.

The problem is that all of those thoughts and opinions are easily constructed after the event, much harder, nigh on impossible to pre-plan for even in times of high spending and unlimited budgets - would you be happy paying for my brother-in-law to sit in a canteen drinking coffee and eating chocolate biscuits on an eight hour shift alongside his riot gear on your average Tuesday night in North London [ijust in case[/i a mob takes to the street ?

This week your answer might be a definite "Yes" because thats actually what he's been doing, but the week before last you'd probably have stated that that would be an unforgiveable waste of resources during such austere times and the sort of thing that should be cut from the budgets immediately - especially if I tell you what his overtime claim is going to be for this week because he's been doing his normal shifts as well as sitting around drinking coffee and munching on biscuits while you and I reward him handsomely.

On a side tack there's also been a massive swing, a full 180 degree swing, in public opinion on police use of force and violence, I fully expected the video that was shown on Weds night of a group of police in riot gear in Manchester attack a handful of youths on bikes to be greeted with horror and calls for police resignations and public enquiries, in fact the opposite was true, it appears that if you are out on your bike at night and claiming to be trying to get away from the troubles then you fully deserve to be pounced upon and beaten with batons by roaming squads of enforcers, nay you should consider yourself lucky that plastic baton rounds are not yet in common use.

Quote ="tvoc"Let the battle continue: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 36852.html Even Maggie knew not to tangle with the thin blue line.'" I think the police were taken by surprise. Cameron has made a very big mistake here.

Quote ="tvoc"Let the battle continue: www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/cr ... 36852.html Even Maggie knew not to tangle with the thin blue line.'" I think the police were taken by surprise. Cameron has made a very big mistake here.

A Commander who doesn't preplan for all eventualities should not be in the job.The efficient and coordinated use of your resources in an emergency is something which should have been practised. Having everybody singing off the same song sheet is not really rocket science either.
How hard is it to have enough riot trained Constables on the beat, who can have quick and easy access to their riot gear when the situation demands it? Perhaps even a contingency plan to swiftly call in reinforcements as and when they are required, and the actions to be taken?
Are you really suggesting that the Met, where one of their own was hacked to death, learnt nothing from the original Broad water Riots?



Exception circumstances demand an exceptional response. Something that was noticeably missing in the first couple of days. Not from the PC's actually facing the mobs, but from lack of joined up thinking on show from the senior Met officers.
And if your brother in law was indeed sat about drinking coffee whilst the mobs were rioting, then that simply highlights the inability of his commander to react to a fast moving situation. I hope when the dust settles there is a review of police actions and tactics, and all those found wanting are pensioned off.



Here, I would disagree with you. The Great British Public have no real problem with the Police handing out some instant justice to the right people. If, and it is an if, those guys on the bikes were indeed the scrotes the police were after, then they will have learnt the meaning of the word consequences.

Handing a slap or two to the wrong person, like in the G8 protests, where that inebriated but innocent guy trying to make his way home is where they don't like it. Of course, over the last 20 or 30 years of creeping liberalism, it has not been Politically Correct to air such views, but the silent majority have made themselves heard at the highest levels over the past couple of days.

FWIW. I don't think throwing a family out of a council house, simply because their teenage son/daughter is a scrote helps us to move forward either. That's a knee jerk reaction that'll simply extends the feelings of hate/persecution a bit wider in that particular community, and whilst I can see a case for withdrawing benefits to those who choose not to live within the law, I hope that a sensible view will prevail amongst the Councils.

Anyone catch Starky, i haven't was wondering if anyone knows what he's said ?

So my original question still stands - you'd be happy for the Acting Met Police Commissioner to demand a standby force of 10,000 riot trained officers from David Cameron's contingency funds ?

Bearing on mind as pointed out earlier the austerity cuts haven't even been enacted yet it would be foreseeable to assume that the true social unrest is yet to hit the streets, what happened this week may be just a warm up, a bit of group shoplifting, it would be reasonable for the Acting Met Police Commissioner to cover his a[irs[/ie with as many reserve troops as he dare ask for then ?

You obviously don't realise either that a lot of policing involves sitting around in canteens or sitting around in vans rather than running around the streets on foot looking for the trouble makers, whole shifts can go by while you're sat waiting for something to kick off in your area of operation while in fact its happening elsewhere but your division has been tipped off that they are coming your way, especially in a metropolitan area like London.

And finally drumming up an extra 10,000 bodies for duty TONIGHT, on the demand of a politician was an immense act given that you had every available one out there (6000 in total) the night before, at any given time only one third of your available staff will be on shift and who knows what percentage will be on sick or on holiday - I know of one North London police station which regularly has only two uniformed officers out on the streets on the graveyard shift, sure its a small station and nothing much happens that can't be followed up in the morning but a lot of people would be shocked to discover just what the level of policing is in your neighbourhood on most nights.

[urlhttp://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/aug/13/david-starkey-claims-whites-black[/url

Any Acting Met Police Commisoner who simply demanded a standby force of 10000 to cover his 'arris should be sacked before he got to the end of that sentence. A Met Commisioner who could show a viable plan of action that would need 10000 extra bodies, and the outside Forces who were going to provide them, should also be able to cost the extras and should indeed expect HM Goverment to fund the operation. [iExceptional circumstances Mcf![/i



Which brings us back to the Commander on the ground and his effecient use of his resources, including Intelligence. Perhaps a root and branch investigation into current Policing is long overdue?



See above