Poor parenting, lack of opportunity and of course the Police!

[d9f1c7]

http://news.sky.com/h...tics/article/16197159
I can go with poor parenting but lack of opportunity? C0bblers there are more chances than ever before. The police? How can this be blamed on the police?
Never seen such a load of handwringing liberal balderdash in my life!

[jno]

the police ought to have enough nous to take action against lawbreakers, even while Boris sleeps, Quizmonster. d9 is usually very cross about the workshy, but apparently he sees nothing wrong with police and fire services all taking a few days off when rioting breaks out.

The point of this report isn't to apportion blame but to find ways of preventing it from happening again. Those who just say "It's all the rioters' fault" are not contributing anything useful to that debate.

[dave50]

It was simply opportunistic vandalism and thieving, the end.

[d9f1c7]

don't talk rot jno!

[Snafu03]

it was all a bit rodneykingesque

[jno]

okay, d9, you tell me. What did you think of the way the police vanished for the first day or two of rioting? Should they have been there, doing the job we pay them for?

[d9f1c7]

They did not "vanish" - where did you get that from, the socialist worker? They admit to being undermanned and not ready for what ensued, and thus took time to get up to speed. Are you saying that in future they should at all times have hundreds of riot cops kitted out on stand by in case the lowives of our cities decide to go on the rampage?

[jno]

I got it from sitting in front of the telly. Croydon was burning. I watched it for hours. Not a police officer, not a fireman was to be seen.

"They admit to being undermanned and not ready for what ensued"... well, that's how it can be blamed on the police. You've answered your own question.

[Quizmonster]

Though I have often found myself on your side, J, over the years and virtually never on Geezer's, I have to say that you need to ask just whose fault it was that they were undermanned. I suggest that the holders of the posts I referred to previously might at least be considered. In other words, if the police were "not ready" BECAUSE of that undermanning, G has not "answered his own question".

[Gladeian]

Surely this is yet again the tight-rope along which the police must walk - had they gone in really hard and dealt with this lawless rabble in the way in which I and many others would have proposed they would have been targeted by the usual lefties and accused of going over the top. They took an initial low-key approach and again were vilified for not taking strong action. It is interesteing to note that one of the post riot reports suggested that police should have/could have used firearms against those endangering life by setting fire to occupied buildings. Ample grist for the hand-wringers had they done so!

[d9f1c7]

So just so we are clear on planet jno, the police should have hundreds of kitted out riot cops standing by at all times ion all the cities, just in case then? So did you manage to pick up the plasma then jno?

for the squillionth time I am not OldGeezer I have no idea why you think I'd bother impersonating another regular.

Oldgeezer can you explain that you are someone else this is starting to concern me.

[jno]

not "at all times". Just when they've shot someone for "not stopping" and fibbed about it. That should do it. People don't riot when it's just Brazilian electricians; when it's local people they get much more angry.

QM, I don't think the police were undermanned. They manned up a few days later, so it seems they had enough personnel, but not in the right places. They were just unprepared for what happened and seemingly too inflexible to do anything about it in a hurry. These are operational matters for the police; I don't think the minister or mayor should carry the can. (Unaccustomed as I am to defending the likes of Boris.)

[d9f1c7]

OK jno why didn't you say so:

"Dear Commissioner,

In future when your chaps are on their way to arrest a career drug dealing criminal, aside from the standard preparation please be sure to notify all major cities to have a few hundred riot police on stand by in case said drug dealer's supporters decide to use it as an excuse for going on a rampage."

Well jno I've got to hjand it to you, genius,I don't know why this isn't standard police practice when arresting lowlives!

[ludwig]

No surprise that QM would like to blame the Tories in some way (for everything).

The fact is that for whatever reason, the police failed to respond quickly, and it was as a direct result of that failure to respond, that it turned from a localised incident into a nationwide orgy of criminality.

[naomi24]

^^ Having said that, the people who turned it into 'a nationwide orgy of criminality' by rampaging, looting, and burning, are ultimately responsible.

[jno]

I didn't say "arrest", d9; you are putting words into my mouth. I said "shot", and what's more I meant "killed". That's when the police need to be aware that the public become annoyed.

I can't really see why this is a surprise to them. Even I can remember the death of Cynthia Jarrett and the shooting of Cherry Groce; but for some reason the police do not.

[ludwig]

Naomi, that goes without saying. When someone does a bad thing, they're responsible for doing it. But if the people whose job it is to stop it happening again fail to act, then they must also bear some responsibility for the fact that the bad behaviour continued.

[naomi24]

I understand what you're saying, Ludwig, but in my opinion that sort of behaviour shouldn't have occurred in the first place, and therefore the only people who can possibly be blamed are the culprits. It was something the police should never have had to deal with.

[youngmafbog]

Jno, your argument may have some creedence in totenham, but no one was shot in Croydon. That, and other cities, was simply lowlife scum caused by their own selfish want want attitude.

[vulcan]

In the latest report the committee is blaming the schools, it seems everybody is now being blamed except the actual rioters. What a wonderful system.

[Quizmonster]

Ludwig, you really need to ask yourself the following questions, "Were the Tories in power at the time or not and did the two most senior ones who SHOULD have been rapidly involved - not to mention Cameron! - fail to abandon their foreign holidays timeously or not?" (To help you, the answer to both is "Yes" and it doesn't matter in the least whom I try to "blame for everything".)
You also use the phrase, "for whatever reason" with regard to the police's seemingly slow response. It cannot surely have escaped your notice that - when they finally DID get men in numbers onto London's streets these men had come from ALL OVER England, not just from the Met's OWN manpower resources. That alone would seem to support the view that they were previously undermanned in the capital.
J, The above also answers your point re "They manned up a few days later, so it seems they had enough personnel, but not in the right places." You're right, 'they' did have enough personnel...sadly, they were in Bradford or Sheffield or Bristol or wherever the Met finally got them from!