Friday, 12 August 2011

UK riots: police round on government

The officer at the helm of the Metropolitan police this morning took a swipe at the government's criticism of his force's handling of the riots.
Tim Godwin, acting commissioner of the Met, said: "I think after any event like this, people will always make comments who weren't there."
Both the home secretary, Theresa May, and the prime minister, David Cameron, were on holiday when the riots erupted last Saturday. Cameron only broke his holiday and arrived back in Britain after the third night of rioting.
There is anger at the Yard over the savaging the police received in the House of commons from the prime minister and May.
Godwin was speaking as he left this mornings meeting in Whitehall of Cobra, the government's emergency committee. One source told the Guardian that there was anger at the Yard after the PM's statement, adding police chiefs there were "appalled" by the remarks.
Godwin said he was receiving support "from a lot of quarters" when asked whether he was receiving the full backing of the home secretary.
"What I can say is that with the unprecedented scenes that we found in London, I have got some of the best commanders that we have seen in the world … that showed great restraint as well as great courage," Godwin said.
"As a result of that we were able to nip this in the bud after a few days. I think the issue around the numbers, the issue around the tactics – they are all police decisions and they are all made by my police commanders and myself.
"As a result of that we have now got a lot of public support, we are working hard to identify all the offenders and we will continue to work relentlessly if it takes us months."
Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, rejected Theresa May's claim that she had ordered the "more robust" approach that quelled rioting in English cities.
Orde said tactics had changed because more officers were made available. The fact that MPs had come home from holiday was "an irrelevance".
May had "no power whatsoever" to cancel all police leave, Orde said. "The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics," he told BBC's Newsnight.
Relations between the Conservative-led government and police chiefs are at an all-time low according to some sources.
Orde defended the police after David Cameron used an emergency debate on the riots in the Commons to critice their tactics.
Meanwhile, a 22-year-old man has been arrested over the murder of Richard Mannington Bowes, the 68-year-old who was attacked as he tried to put out a fire during riots in Ealing. Bowes had been in hospital with critical injuries – his death was announced early this morning.
Four other deaths that took place during the riots are being investigated by police. A man was found shot in a car in Croydon and three men were hit by a car in Birmingham.
Courts again sat through the night on Thursday as magistrates heard charges against many of those arrested during the four nights of violence. The Metropolitan police have made 1,047 arrests since the rioting began on Saturday, with 584 people charged. West Midlands police have arrested 445 people and 178 have been arrested in Manchester and Salford.
Police had faced an "unprecedented situation, unique circumstances", Orde said in the BBC interview.
"The fact that politicians chose to come back [from holiday] is an irrelevance in terms of the tactics that were by then developing. The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics."
Cuts to policing budgets would "inevitably" lead to fewer police officers, he said. "We need to have some very honest conversations with government about what we stop doing if we are to maintain frontline service delivery at current levels.
"It's the 20% cuts in the present spending period that will lead to less police officers, we should be very clear about that."
Vikram Dodd and James Meikle @'The Guardian'

UK ‘riot’ culture: What does research say?

The rioting that broke out in London on the 6th August 2011, and then spread to other parts of the UK over the following week, saw extraordinary levels of crime, looting, and rioting for the UK.
UK Prime Minister David Cameron has said that action will be taken to restore order, but in the long-term questions about the power of police, the role of gangs in society, and the socio-economic impetuses behind the disorder all need to be taken into account. The public perception of the UK as a safe society has changed dramatically.
Research from Routledge explores these issues further. The articles are all FREE to access for a limited time

HERE

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The moral decay of our society is as bad at the top as the bottom

David Cameron, Ed Miliband and the entire British political class came together yesterday to denounce the rioters. They were of course right to say that the actions of these looters, arsonists and muggers were abhorrent and criminal, and that the police should be given more support.
But there was also something very phony and hypocritical about all the shock and outrage expressed in parliament. MPs spoke about the week’s dreadful events as if they were nothing to do with them.
I cannot accept that this is the case. Indeed, I believe that the criminality in our streets cannot be dissociated from the moral disintegration in the highest ranks of modern British society. The last two decades have seen a terrifying decline in standards among the British governing elite. It has become acceptable for our politicians to lie and to cheat. An almost universal culture of selfishness and greed has grown up.
It is not just the feral youth of Tottenham who have forgotten they have duties as well as rights. So have the feral rich of Chelsea and Kensington. A few years ago, my wife and I went to a dinner party in a large house in west London. A security guard prowled along the street outside, and there was much talk of the “north-south divide”, which I took literally for a while until I realised that my hosts were facetiously referring to the difference between those who lived north and south of Kensington High Street.
Most of the people in this very expensive street were every bit as deracinated and cut off from the rest of Britain as the young, unemployed men and women who have caused such terrible damage over the last few days. For them, the repellent Financial Times magazine How to Spend It is a bible. I’d guess that few of them bother to pay British tax if they can avoid it, and that fewer still feel the sense of obligation to society that only a few decades ago came naturally to the wealthy and better off...