Will Labour get behind its leader on the riots?
Is trying to make excuses a dangerous strategy? So far during riot week Ed Miliband has played a very straight bat and has been careful not to be seen to be making excuses for the arson, looting, mugging and now murder. His rhetoric has been focussed on the need to restore public order combined with calls practical help and cash. As Michael White puts it in the Guardian his approach has been to treat it as if the rioting was…
Do the rioters have an image problem?
Can they persuade us that they are not hooded teen thugs? There’s an interesting feature on the Reuters news agency by Mohammed Abbas who observes that pleas by police on parents to rein in the youths were just laughed at. One woman is quoted as saying: “I was out in the riots. My 16-year-old daughter was calling me asking where I was,” she said, chuckling. She stood with a group of Afro-Caribbean men and women on a street corner, muttering…
Will the rhetoric start to have an impact?
Have the police and the politicians got the message right? There’ve been some powerful set-pieces this morning from both the police and politicians as the effort goes on to dampen things down and hopefully to bring an end to the spate of lootings, mugging and arson. I thought Cameron’s tone today was just right and provided his actions match the rhetoric this could end up as a positive for him. His short speech outside Number 10 was one of the…
Blame for the riots: The Red-Blue split
Was it criminal behaviour or the cuts? We’ve now got the the first comprehensive polling of public reaction to the riots and as can be seen from the YouGov data featured in the chart above there’s a big split between Conservative supporters and Labour ones. The question was quite simple – “Thinking about the recent riots in London and other cities in Britain, which of the following do you think is the MAIN cause of the riots?” As can be…
Could Labour beat Boris if they got rid of Ken?
Could another candidate exploit the incumbent’s weaknesses? Perhaps the first election where we’ll the first impact of the riots will be that for London Mayor in May. The Tory incumbent, Mr. Johnson, looked far from sure-footed on his first day back after his truncated holiday and got booed at several locations when visiting the riot scenes. This has been the worst break-down in public order in living memory and there might be more to come. Boris’s failure to get back…
Will the police feel less inhibited tonight?
Picture mazherabidi Is that where political leadership helps? So we are entering night four of the disturbances, lootings, thefts, muggings and arson but the big difference is that the police are more prepared and have many more people available. My guess as well is that those policemen on the ground will feel a little less demoralised as has been evident on previous evenings. This is where the arrival back in the UK of Cameron and Boris is so important. Their…
What’s this going to do to Britain’s reputation overseas?
Will there be a price to pay? The big global story over the past couple of days has been what’s happening in London and now other major cities. The media is driven by pictures and there’ve been enough dramatic material to feed the desire of editors to make their output look dramatic and interesting. But is this going to have a price? Could it mean that, say, overseas firms in the city decide that they shouldn’t maintain their London presences…