Police

Thursday

Alex Massie

Parliament, Police Powers and Authoritarian Temptations

From our UK edition

To the surprise of no-one the public is more concerned by crime this week than it was a week ago. Fancy that! and, equally, to the surprise of no-one, parliament was prepared to indulge any number of kneejerk nonsenses today. Hence the foolishness* about shutting down "social networking communications" during "times of unrest". Parliament may need to be recalled to give the impression that something is being done; most of the time, in circumstances such as these, it may be best if it only pretends to be doing something. You don't need to be as preoccupied with civil liberties as I am to appreciate that there's the potential for this kind of power to be desperately misused.

David Blackburn

A friendly gesture…

From our UK edition

The police received a savaging in parliament earlier. I lost count of the number of MPs who relayed their constituents' anger about riot police who stood by as buildings burned. Cameron’s defence – that the police response had been inadequate to adapt to a new threat posed by crime facilitated by social networking – did not allay the concern. By the end of the debate, there was consensus among many backbenchers that police officers should receive training in riot control as part of their basic training. The extraordinary incidents in London and elsewhere have been at the centre of the world’s eye, and the police have not escaped censure.

James Forsyth

Cameron sets out his stall

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons was clear about the circumstances that led to these riots. ‘This is not about poverty, it’s about culture. A culture that glorifies violence, shows disrespect to authority, and says everything about rights but nothing about responsibilities.’ Later in the session, he said ‘you don’t hit moral failure with a wall of money.’ On this, Cameron is surely right. In a respectful atmosphere in the House of Commons, Cameron set out the government’s proposed response to the riots. The major legislative action he set out was a change to the law to allow the police to force people who they suspect of being involved in criminal activity to remove face coverings.

David Blackburn

Coalition united in restoring law, order and property

From our UK edition

David Cameron’s convictions are best expressed in anger. Cameron exuded an air of the patrician yesterday with his righteous moral certainty. This may have made some observers squirm, but others would have seen this seething performance as the essence of leadership in crisis. Cameron is likely to sustain this tone in parliament today. He will say that there is a “sickness” in our society and set out his plan for curing the malaise. The political class has already offered the government a panoply of options to pursue, but the coalition is expected to stand by its current course of education and welfare reform; if anything, these riots confirm their necessity.

Wednesday

Jonathan Jones

The public wants firmer action

From our UK edition

Judging by today's YouGov polls, the riots have pushed crime sharply up the national agenda: it now ranks second, behind only the economy. In all, almost half of Brits think crime is one of the top three issues facing the country, more than double the number who said so a fortnight ago. The effect has, unsurprisingly, been strongest in London, where around two-in-three now see crime as a major concern: As for the causes of the riots, the majority blame "criminal behaviour" and "gang culture". Contrary to what Harriet Harman may insinuate, just eight per cent blame the government's cuts, and this is largely the 16 per cent of Labour voters who put the blame at the Coalition's door.

Matt Sanders

How Chalk Farm survived the riots

From our UK edition

For those emerging from Chalk Farm Tube station on Tuesday night, the scene was set. It’s unsettling seeing a place you know well boarded up, locked down and steeling itself for attack. Few businesses were taking risks, and their defences leant the area a taut, eerie atmosphere, like a place awaiting demolition. One elderly resident — used to the bustle, noise and colour of hundreds of daily visitors to Camden Market — was spooked simply by the silence. Night-time revellers were replaced by policemen on every street corner (Camden had an extra 200 officers). “It’s like everyone’s been evacuated,” she whispered. People were jumpy. A sole siren was like a pressure valve, prompting a flood of twitter messages and anxious phone calls.

Peter Hoskin

The politics of police cuts

From our UK edition

Wow, that was a howitzer of a performance from Boris Johnson on the Today Progamme earlier. And all his shells were aimed at Downing St. Not only did the Mayor of London slander Cameron’s Broken Society thesis, not only did he support Diane Abbott against the jibes of Tory HQ, but he also committed the gravest act of all, given the current climate. He lined up with Labour in attacking the coalition's police cuts. "This is not a time to think about making substantial cuts in police numbers," said BoJo. "I think it would be a good thing if the government had another look," he added, for emphasis.  There's little doubt that Boris has hit upon a potent attack here.

David Blackburn

London slept as violence spread across England

From our UK edition

The presence of 16,000 police officers in London deterred looting, but violence spread in provincial towns across England, with tragic consequences. Riots in Birmingham left three men dead after a car ran them over; police are treating the incident as a murder. There was also disorder in Salford, Manchester, Gloucester, West Bromwich and Nottingham. Each separate incident was characterised by the same pattern of events: looting, muggings, arson and confrontation with the police. Once again, the Molotov Cocktail was a favoured weapon, and one assumes that the deprived rioters stole the expensive fuel required to make them.

Tuesday

Maurice Mcleod

When the underbelly roars

From our UK edition

When the first riots hit Brixton, I was 12 years old. My mates and I came from south London council estates and, while we were no angels, we certainly couldn't be described as bad kids. I can't pretend that I had any real grasp on why people were rioting but I knew it was against the same police who would stop and bug us constantly — even though none of us had either the balls or inclination to commit crime. It may sound like a tired cliche but the police didn’t feel like our protectors. They felt like more like an occupying force. And why? There were countless incidents to explain it, but one that sticks in my mind was in 1981 — the same year as the first Brixton riots.

Emma Soames

Joining the clean-up operation

From our UK edition

It was 8am this morning when I first saw Sophie and Ella's clean-up call trending on Twitter. I duly trotted down to Clapham Junction to find the whole area wreathed in smoke and in lockdown. With only four of us there so far, and the police busily trying to restore order, there wasn't anything we could do at that moment. And so I ventured down there again later in the morning, joining a procession of locals carrying brooms and bags in wheelbarrows. Dress code: hoodless tops, Marigolds and brooms. I spent a cathartic hour with two other girls cleaning up the streets behind Debenhams. We bagged scores of coat hangers (sizes 40 and 42 most popular), empty BlackBerry boxes, shoe boxes, lots of drinks cartons and bottles (looting's obviously thirsty work).

Peter Hoskin

Cameron announces that Parliament will be recalled

From our UK edition

So far as its tone went, David Cameron's statement just now was firm and unyielding. He did express his sympathy for the victims of the riots; the emergency services, the shopkeepers, the fearful. But the major emphasis was on bringing the culprits to book. His "clear message" for the perpetrators of this destruction was that "you will feel the full force of the law". He preceded that by describing their actions as "criminality, pure and simple — and it has to be confronted and defeated". There were no excuses nor prevarications, and rightly so. As for the content, it seems that the government is eager to keep this a police matter, but to ramp it up nonetheless. "We need more," said Cameron, which included "more police on the streets" and "more arrests".

Andrew Petrie

Last night in Peckham

From our UK edition

This was what Peckham High Street looked like at about 6.45 last night. I had heard that a bus was petrol-bombed although I neither saw nor heard evidence of that. There was no confrontation between police and the public and I didn't see any arrests. Mostly it was just a case of people standing around wondering what, if anything, to do next.

Peter Hoskin

The Met is struggling to cope — it needs support

From our UK edition

It's a gloomy sort of morning ritual, posting on the riots of the previous night. I'm sure CoffeeHousers have seen and heard the specifics already: further burning and looting in parts of London such as Ealing, Croydon and Hackney, as well as bursts of violence in Birmingham, Liverpool and elsewhere. Businesses and livelihoods have been obliterated, areas set back years. Among the few mercies is that no-one, so far as we know, has yet been killed as a result. One thing that's becoming clearer through the smoke is that the Met Police are overrun, unable to properly deal with criminality at hand. The arrest figures tell a story by themselves.

Monday

Peter Hoskin

Cameron to return to London as the riots spread

From our UK edition

There we have it: David Cameron is to return to London tonight, and chair a meeting of Cobra in the morning. There was an inevitability to the decision even earlier today, with the news that both Theresa May and Boris Johnson had curtailed their own holidays. But the fact that the riots have spread — starting in Hackney this evening, and erupting even in Birmingham — served to underline the point. It is the right decision, in any case. Cameron's ability to control the situation may be limited, but his continued absence might only have inflamed things further. There are a lot of people scrabbling around for a grievance to bare and exploit tonight. The Prime Minister's holiday can no longer be one.

Sunday

Fraser Nelson

Twitter had the riot covered

From our UK edition

The revolution may not be televised, but the riot was tweeted pretty well last night. I was up at 3am (don't ask), and BBC News hadn't even interrupted their normal programming. But turning to Twitter, it was all there. Specifically, via two reporters: Paul Lewis from the Guardian and Ravi Somaiya from the New York Times. They behaved like instinctive reporters: picked up (on the news or, more likely, on Twitter) that a riot was underway, then went out and reported it. And they did so with pictures and observations that were well-judged and informative, never hysterical or futile. The presence of a TV camera, with the bright lights, have a certain effect on a crowd — so the blogger with his mobile is better able to take and broadcast truer images of what's going on.

Peter Hoskin

Tottenham smoulders

From our UK edition

London has become used to protest recently, but there was still something terrible and unexpected in the images emerging from Tottenham last night. Here we had firebombs, missiles, riot police, burning vehicles, smashed-in shops, looting and other criminality — and it has left eight policemen injured, as well as others in hospital. The cause of the rioting was, apparently, the fatal shooting of Mark Duggan by police on Thursday. The effect was scenes reminiscent of Brixton or Broadwater Farm in the 1980s. There will be fresh attention paid to Tottenham — one of the poorest areas of one of London's poorest boroughs — by politicians now, and rightly so.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Westminster’s Festina Affair

From our UK edition

Cycling fans will recall the Festina Affair that crippled the 1998 version of the Tour de France. The discovery that the peloton could be considered a travelling pharmacy did not surprise veteran cycling aficionados, even if the extent and sophistication of the doping was enough to shock some. Entire teams withdrew from a race that, with grim inevitability, quickly became known as the Tour de Farce. Well, this phone-hacking scandal is, for the press and parliament, a comparable scandal.

Tuesday

Blair Gibbs

Only police reform can keep politics out of policing

From our UK edition

We expect and openly tolerate close, even cosy, relations between politicians and the media – each relies on the other for survival in a society that is less deferential and where politicians find it difficult to be heard, let alone trusted. The police need to tell their side of the story. But the police are not politicians. When senior police officers begin to behave like politicians – and 18 dinners with one media group looks like a politician’s diary – they damage the wider reputation of the service. First, officers who meet with the press are still public servants with a duty of discretion, and yet insight and understanding can quickly descend into un-attributable briefings that demean the police.

Monday

David Blackburn

From the archives – Yates had previous

From our UK edition

As Theresa May put it in an impressive statement to the House earlier, “These allegations are not, unfortunately, the only recent example of alleged corruption and nepotism in the police.” She then vowed to open an inquiry into these matters, which will stand in addition to the two already announced by the government. The panel will have plenty to look at, as Michael White explained in the Spectator a few years back. John Yates has previous, by Michael White, 10 March 2007 When I was a young reporter on the London Evening Standard nearly 40 years ago I spent a lot of time in the press room at Scotland Yard, not learning very much.