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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
Will extra cops be enough? The Cameron statement had just two concrete measures – an increase from 6,000 to 16,000 in the number of police on the streets of London tonight and the recall of parliament on Thursday. But should he have gone further? Should other measures be considered? We’ll see what happens tonight. @MikeSmithsonPB
Metro ..or will it spread more? So Dave is back and this morning we have a meeting a COBRA – a move that was so derided in the early days of Brown’s premiership in 2007. Maybe the idea that people at the top are fully focussed on dealing with the situation will provide reassurance to the public and to the police who’ve been asked to do a challenging job in almost a political vacuum. My guess is that we’ll see…