1716: Hello and welcome to our rolling news coverage of the London riots.

I saw a lot of exposed faces on that news feed. With the number of CC cameras in that areas they will probably be able to identify a good number of them.

Goodgulf

I see that the English people stick to their old traditions. There has always been riots in England; other countries have had revolutions, that was outmoded in England as soon as the French and the Americans had tried this. Formerly the army was used, with the results, that could be expected, and then it seemed to be forgotten. I remember a passage in Jane Eyre, where the presence af a colonel is explained by his regiment being there to stop some riots. until then the reader has been convinced, that everything was peaceful and quiet. Later in the Victorian era chartists and people who disliked workhouses had to be subdued. Kep up the traditions!!!

Goodgulf
UK prisons are full,-we can't afford them; we let out nearly all offenders on licence when they have served half their sentence; we don't make much effort to collect fines or enforce community service. Our police forces are stretched and many stations have closed their custody suites as an economy measure. The government want to massively reduce police numbers and costs. Police morale is low.
Due to the actions of a handful of officers selling info to the press the Met were branded as corrupt.
The two most senior officers were hounded out of office due to the Murdoch press phone hacking scandal, presumably creating a leadership vacuum.
I wonder what the politicians will be saying now when they realise they need the police to rescue the country friom anarchy and chaos.
The CPS only prosecute when they consider a conviction a near cert.
When a police officer stops a number of youths and finds a small amount of cannabis and on searching one finds a bladed stanley lock-knife; the magistrates find him not guilty as the youth claimed that he'd been fitting a carpet and forgot it was in his car!!!
Do you really think that CCtV cameras will enable the police to arrest any but a few probably hangers on as the street-wise and ringleaders all know to keep their faces covered.
Do you really think that those that deserve to be locked up for long sentences will be. The ones that will be caught will mainly be bit players, and the naive or stupid who forgot to cover their faces
Fat chance of any realistic action happening.
When politicians all send their kids to private schools or live in leafy safe areas, do you really think that anything will be done to attack the root causes.
When the local communities have little or no sense of identity due to mass immigration and the hopeless aim of creating a multi-cultural society.
Do you really think the underclass that a grasping and greedy society has carefully created over the past thirty years care for values and law and order.
Its a hell of a mess and was probably inevitable.
The only good thing may be that it acts as a wake-up call to our politicians and judges to ensure severe penalties for serious offences; and also to try to stop the rot of social deprivation and total indifference to civilised society that many of the young poor feel.
It certainly puts Charlie Gilmour's sentence of 16 months for hanging from the cenotaph, throwing a bin and breaking a window into context.
Presumably all those found guity in these riots will serve from 5 to 20 years based on that comparison.
That would nearly bankrupt the country.
Sorry for the rant, but I have thought something like this was inevitable for some time.
Boris the buffoon was recently asking for the 50% top tax rate to be cut, perhaps he might now concentrate on the real problems London faces, and stop trying to further himself and his mates.

Rant my Ass Jimisim, you just told it like it is!!! Maybe now the authorities could catch on to what it is like in the real world. I would like to endorse every view you put forward here and then some!
We should be so proud that this is where the greatest sporting spectacle has been designated to take place in 11 months. It will enormously reassure the relevant bodies that the basics of Law, Order and personal safety are so well covered. The latest bulletin is 18,000 police will be on London streets tonight.
That seems an impressive number, until you realise that they have had to draft officers in from 26 different police forces to reach that figure, And a solitary sporting event has been cancelled on security grounds. (England match at Wembley). Just makes your heart swell with pride to know that budget reductions have had little or no effect on our personal security and the freedom to enjoy social activities.
Still let us not lose sight of the real concerns here, We have some really important people having to curtail one of their holidays by a couple of days, and God Forfend, Politiciaqns are being recalled to parliament EARLY!!! No doubt it will have to be a significant rise in salary, Drastically improved expense allowances, and large Whiskies all round to compensate them for this appalling inconvenience !!!!!

Ho Hum Ho Hum and Rule Britannia!!

I agree with most of what jimisim says too. At least Charlie Gilmour had something he was actually protesting about! They always chose to make an example of the wrong people. I don't mind Boris, at least he keeps me entertained. Very disappointed in what Ken Livingstone said. You can't blame economic policies. People have a choice in how they behave and it's often their own communities they are destroying.

It's quite true that people have a choice, but when a large number of people make a spectacularly wrong choice, it is worth asking why. The riots have mostly occurred in poor areas near to rich areas. The gap between rich and poor is increasing. We all get consumer goodies shoved in our faces and are cleverly told our worth depends on them. That seems to me likely to be a contributory factor.

As for the Murdoch affair, I don't see what effect it has had on this business. There's no reason to think the Acting Commissioner has done worse than his predecessor would have done, and while low police morale will have a big effect in the long term, it does not affect how officers respond to a sudden danger like this or explain the poor handling of the original situation (turns out one officer was nearly killed by the other who fired, killed the guy they were after and also hit his own colleague, the bullet fortunately striking his radio!)

What is really depressing, of course, is that the rioting and looting hit the poor areas hardest. Some voluntary organisations helping people at the bottom of the heap have lost their premises, as have small local businesses which, despite insurance, may not open again.

If the police do get some of the ringleaders, I agree it won't be by CCTV or other photos and film, but by analysing electronic messages. But it may turn out there weren't really any ringleaders.

You can't say poverty is a cause of the rioting. All the guys involved seem to wear designer gear, have mobiles, gold jewellery. They make the wrong choices because they are fuelled by hatred and envy. They lack empathy. The family unit has broken down because where are the parents? Mob rule suspends any moral qualms they may have had. It is very little to do with poverty, much more to do with destructive forces in human nature. It is true in this society more than most if you work hard you can get on, especially if you use a little brain power. Of course it's harder if you are born in Hackney rather than Hampstead but its still more than possible to earn a reasonable wage. They want something without working for it.

I can understand how someone could be tempted to loot but I do find the arson, the mindless vandalism and above all the violence very hard to understand. They should be dealt with ruthlessly as they are destroying communities. I think the senior police officers and the politicians have been much too slow to act. Who is going to invest in Hackney or Peckham in the future? It is very sad.

The USA has been in the throws of that sort of thinking for the last ten years. You see where upper class tax cutting has gotten us; unsustainable debt. The unthinkable has just happened. With much more of that sort of "stimulus," the USA will be broke and us colonials will all be out of work!

I agree with what you say about the family, blimp - especially if, as police are suggesting, many of these are schoolkids, controlled more or less in school but not by their parents - but ALL the guys? Not some in pictures I've seen; and if poverty has nothing to do with it, indirectly or directly, why does it happen in Tottenham, Liverpool and Salford and not in Windsor, Bromley and Lyme Regis?

A sharp response is certainly needed to regain control, but then some real thought.

It did happen in Bromley too actually according to the BBC. And Ealing isn't exactly skid row! Let's not feel too sorry for them!