When the first student protest got violent, the feeling was that the Met had been caught off guard - they simply didn't have enough police on hand to deal with it. But now it's the fourth protest, and they still haven't got a grip. Have they cut their budget so much they can't afford the overtime for extra officers? Are the police deliberately holding back in order to make a protest of their own?
Yes, we have a careless Tory government (what's new?), headed by a prime minister who sends for his personal tennis coach to be flown out to Tuscany while London riots. Yes, there is a lot of tension on the streets as the under-classes feel the pinch of cutbacks in education allowances, high inflation and no prospect of work thanks to Osborne taking an economy growing at a fast 1.1% per quarter at the election and hammering it wilfully into the ground.
It still does not add up to a burning capital city, unless you throw in a third toxic element - and that is the Met. They've handled it astonishingly badly, they failed to call for swift assistance from outside police forces, they've messed up at every turn.
The chattering classes are now nodding and saying "well they won't cut 2000 officers from the Met now, will they?".
Leave aside whether you agree or disagree with the cuts to the police force (I think the cuts are a bad idea).
The serious issue is that the police have won their "protest" with their rather unusual strike, where they've worked to rule and watched from the sidelines rather than taking full control of the situation. And at what a terrible cost. I shudder to think they'll feel emboldened to do it again - holding both communities and governments to hostage, because they've discovered they have the power to let the capital burn by simply doing nothing.
The weak Tory leadership and their clown Clegg deputy haven't helped either.
This would not have happened under either Tone or Gord. Tone's antennae would have been twitching on day 1 and he'd have been putting tremendous pressure on all concerned to get a grip. John Prescott would have done his deputy job and been all over the airwaves telling the rioters off (or as someone on twitter put it "I can't help but wonder that if John Prescott was in charge he would be out on the streets punching the hoodie feckers himself"). And in Gord's era, the chief of the Met would have been woken up at 4 a.m. to ensure he was up in time to do his job properly, and he might have been encouraged with a bit of shouting.
The Met wouldn't have dared to allow things to get this out-of-control under the Labour government.
But no one is in the least bit in awe of Cameron, not the rioters, and not the police. So London burns.
5 comments:
This wouldn't have happened under Labour. They would have killed a few innocent bystanders to get the tough message out. Ian Tomlinson, mere collateral damage.
No riots were recorded under Labour. Oldham, Bradford and Birmingham are Tory propaganda. There was no recession, one quarter's economic growth validates Labour's record. Gordon Brown was a paragon of strong leadership etc. Yawn.
DevonChap - Labour managed to grow the economy for TEN consecutive years, even through the dot.com crash that sent the the USA, France, Germany and Japan into recession. The Tories haven't even managed four consecutive quarters of growth.
As for your attempts to trivialise the riots - pathetic! These are worse than even the 1981 riots. You have to go back a full century to find a loss of control this bad.
What on earth is the point of Tories, pray? They can't keep the peace, they can't run the economy. What are they good at?
What is the point of the Tories? Well at least Labour are true to form, as always ruining the economy and destroying our social bonds. Don't blame looting 11 years olds on us. They grew up under your glorious education system and economy, the one that had 10 debt fuelled years of growth but still failed to find jobs for these people because you failed to equip them.
Growing an economy with debt is easy as long as people keep lending to you. Just as long as you understand that since debt is consumption brought forward you are eating tomorrow's growth. Losen the economy to stave off a mild recession in 2001 and you inflate a property boom which leads to a even greater crash. Kicking the can down the road is what Labour did because you arrogantly thought (and I truely believe you did think) you had "abolished boom and bust". I think most people you have prefered to have had Germany's naugthies rather than Labour Britian's. Germany is back to its pre 2008 output levels through sound money and hard work. Yet I seem to remember a certain Snowflake castigating them for not rushing to hose money on their economy.
You have naturally forgotten the numerous riots we had under New Labour,Bradford,Burnley,Oldham and the May day riots to name a few.
'- Labour managed to grow the economy for TEN consecutive years'
Based on massive public and private debt which came crashing down under Mr No more Boom or bust.
Every time a Labour government leaves office,the number of people unemployed is more than when it came into office and the country is close to bankruptcy.
Not often that a single politician is unanimously acclaimed as the worst Chancellor & the worst Prime Minister.
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