A friendly gesture...

Peter From Maidstone

I'm not embarrassed! Why should we care what other governments and nations think? This is our problem and we need to deal with it in our way. Whether or not our politicians and police authorities will do so is a different matter, but we certainly do not need to worry about what other countries think.

It is also clear that the police in London were not 'adapting' to a new situation, they were in fact hobbled by the political correctness which has insisted that young black and immigrant and poor youths must not be challenged.

It was disturbing how quickly large numbers of police seemed available to deal with the non-threat to order of the white and English Ealing Army, when they had done very little to deal with mostly black and immigrant rioters.

whatawaste

The police fronted up and admitted their mistakes and adapted their stance towards the rioters/looters which with the benefit of hindsight should have been implemented at the outset, What was truly pathetic were the ranks of hypocritical MPs line up to slag off the police, when those same MPs should be in jail (expenses scandals etc)but for the current inept policing and Crminal justice system.

Hmm, I sense a severe contradiction here. Do you seriously believe that the Palace of Westminster really wants an effective police force and a Crminal justice system prepared to prosecute everyone equally including VIPs, the "great and good" and senior politicians?

Dream on!

Axstane

I seem to remember cars and shops burning night after night in France a few years back. The same occurred there just last October. Mind you, the gendarmes arrive with tear gas, stun grenades and shotguns.

Dennis Churchill

But are the police a statistically valid cross section of the community? Are there enough women ethnic minorities and homosexuals in all ranks? Get your priorities right.

adriandrummond

@Peter From Maidstone

Peter, you may not be embarrassed but those of us who live abroad for reasons of work almost certainly are. You may not be aware of this but we ('we' being predominently the English) have a dreadful reputation outside our shores and from a foreigner's perspective, rightly so. Two months ago, i saw some people throwing chairs into a street in a pretty regualar european city, and yes, surprise, surprise they were English.

Yes, you do need to worry about it if you have any self respect.

Augustus

What sort of nation have we become when women in restaurants are having their wedding rings ripped off their fingers? (Daily Mail). This is more than just an
”entitlement” mentality, it's anarchy pure and simple. England has lost the plot.

Tom Pride

Been otherwise engaged today and only just had the time to quick scroll through the posts and comments. Amazing – recently Fatbloke has only bothered to get out of bed for Frazer and his graphs. But, this sudden and copious re-appearance of Fatbloke with all his friends. Their trolling is directly proportional to the size of any movement of the Zeitgeist against the Left and Labour – they must be really rattled today.

Has he said anything worthwhile? I long ago gave up reading his contributions.

TrevorsDen

Spot on Tom Pride.

Pat

That English culture does not repect authority is something to be proud of. What exactly did authority do to command respect. That English culture (or rather subculture) does not respect person or property is not.

Chris lancashire

Tom Pride: wise policy re reading inane comments.

Having watched snatches of the Commons today I began to wonder what on earth they are all for. MP after MP said the same thing - not political...pure criminality ... poor police response ... blah, blah, blah.
Most of these MPs couldn't run a bath but can tell everyone else how they should manage. Utter waste of time (and money).

strapworld

Well written Tom Pride and Chris lancashire.

Peter from Maidstone. Just a thought to ease your troubled mind, the EU can at any time send their police over here 'to assist'!

biggestaspidistra

It is worth recalling how snooty and self congratulatory BBC reporters were when discussing the Paris riots a few years ago regarding the position of France's immigrants compared to our own well integrated society. How times change.

Herbert Thornton

"By the end of the debate, there was consensus that police officers should receive training in riot control as part of their basic training. Cameron, for his part, refused to acquiesce."

Of course this good and sincere P.M. should not have acquiesced. That sort of policy is what the EDL and the BNP would inflict on us - isn't it?

Forlornehope

I've lost count of the times we've seen the French police standing back while strikers torch foreign lorries, blockade Channel ports or commit other egregious offences. Indeed the les flics have been known to actively prevent citizens attempts to evade the rioters.

2trueblue

Forlorn Hope, quite. the French did so well!

Dimoto

Mr Blackburn must have been watching a debate in a parallel universe.

The one I watched had Cameron saying that he and the Met Commissioner had agreed that the police performance on the first two days was well below par.

What is it with you journos ? isn't the story big enough without you adding your fancies to it ?

I have just been watching Sky's pompous "why did the riots happen?" programme. Some half-witted "reporter" asking some deeply self-pitying bloke on a Nottingham estate, who was nowhere near the riots, rambling on about the oppressive "Capitalist system robbing jobs", then a Korean woman from Los Angeles with "all the answers" based on her memories of the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Seems our glorious, putrid "media" are determined to turn this into a political story. Total, bloody disgrace !

denis cooper

It should be recognised that a typical MP will always have in mind that his Commons contribution may get reported in the local press, and it may provide material for his next weekly column and could also be used in the next party leaflet etc etc, so that was one not-so-good reason why so many MPs wanted to speak.

Griffin

@adriandrummond
People of my generation are especially bitter about the loss of this country's reputation. Our country was a beacon to the world, renowned for tolerance and decency. We remember the rapturous reception the people of occupied Europe gave to our liberating troops. I remember a few months after the war ended travelling in a troop train through Switzerland on the way to Italy. Everywhere the Swiss waved to us. Whenever the train stopped at a station they came and talked to us.

But in those days we disciplined ourselves. And we had leaders we could respect. I can't imagine someone like Harriet Harman getting anywhere near the Cabinet table graced by Churchill, Attlee and Ernie Bevin. O tempora! O mores!

John Goode

The bulk of responsibility lies with tthe rioters; the lawbreakers.

However the police also bear some culpability in terms of the culture of disrespect

Two incidents stick out in my mind over the past 5 years

1. A shopkeeper who caught a yob stealing and brought him back to his parents was arrested and charged for unlawful imprisonment. (re Orwais Dar)

2. A grandmother who remonstrated with yobs throwing stones on her house gets charged with assault when she prods one in the chest (re Renata Bowling)

I'm not at all surprised that we have an underclass who feel entitled and show no respect for the law or law abiding citizens. After all many in the police seem to have joined their ranks and forgotten what the law is supposed to be about.

Dimoto

Of course the foreign press will have a dig.

We have an embarrassing bunch of upstarts in the BBC, Foreign Office etc. perpetually telling people how much better we do everything, and always the first to censor foreign governments.
Such a contrast with the lumpen Brit abroad !

And then, there is the French jealousy of our our stable and flexible democracy (see Charles de Gaulle), and our unarmed police.

And then, the fact that our finance industry (the envy of France and Germany), was, according to their script, the ruination of the UK.
But the UK refuses to roll over (so far), and it is France whose credit rating is in doubt !
Quelle horreur !!

Akvavitix

It just goes to show how much the flabby Mr Shameron has lost touch with the "little people" of Britain. I cautiously predict that he will be out in 2015.....I hope.

I just hope the half wit population of Britain don't get a short term memory problem and vote the morons of Labour back in instead.

pharbitis

@John Goode: You are partly correct - but it is not always the police who decide to prosecute. The 'politically correct' CPS and a bunch of lefty lawyers have ensured that decent folk will be taught a lesson if they dare to stand up to the feral vermin who scare the cr*p out of teachers, social workers and Community constables. The 'law'-makers, 'law'-enforcers and judges need to examine their consciences.

Charles De Ghoul

Blair's Children playing out 'Cool Brittania' was as ridiculous a display as New Labour themselves.

But the cherry on top for me was when watching the footage on sky, to see a 5'1" flump of a police women holding a shield that was way too large for her.
Who would be scared of that? Unless of course you had looted some fresh donuts.

The riots I can take, but the PC Police they sent to takle them are part of the problem, certainly not a solution.

As for the French, whenever I smell garlic it reminds me of hypocracy, some things never change.

oldtimer

No one should underestimate the reputational damage that these events have caused the UK - nor the financial damage.

I have seen it before in other contexts back in the 1970s. English is the international lingua franca and is now supplemented by 24 hour hours TV news. That coverage matters; it has influence. So while some may not care, it will cost this country.

Dennis Churchill

Charles De Ghoul
August 11th, 2011 7:53pm
Yes but she filled the quota---maybe she was a lesbian----did you notice if she was ever so slightly tanned?

Charles De Ghoul

@Dennis

It was a frumpy white lass and not meaning to be rude, but I find it hard to believe that she had the fitness/physique to be a lollipop lady, let alone a riot copper.
She would have been a liability, a weak link had it kicked off.

But you are right, it's definately a 'quota' thing!

Baron

Baron is always amazed when the politicians pass laws PC constraining what members of an institution, a profession are allowed to do, then jump up and about if the same institutions, professions fail to do what it says on the tin.

the police (not unlike like the soldiers, the teachers, the parents…) have been near terrorized by the uman Rights, minority statutes, further ‘guidances issued’, other PC crap, what could one expect them to do?

if the rioters were members of the EDL, the BNP, even Millwall football fans would probably qualify, a large number of sculls would be in need of some serious repair now, Baron reckons.

Sir Everard Digby

Am I alone in wondering why the political classes have treated this situation as something which has nothing to do with them? Watching Parliament you would be forgiven for believing that the country is made up of would be rioters and only the great and good at Westminster can resolve the situation.

They don't get it do they?

The mindless looters may have no moral compass and no respect for anything. I suspect many of them have not had access to the same sort of education as our political classes.

So who is worse? the Oxbridge educated,self-promoting,lying expense fiddler,or the feral looter?

Hard to tell. Or perhaps not. After all the looter is not telling me how they will be fixing problems which seem to have emerged from thin air. The political classes should be able to make the moral distinction.

If anyone needs a blast from the water cannon,it's them

french person (arabic descent)

As a french person with an arabic name, I can assure you the UK has no lesson to receive from the french in any domain (with the exception of cooking)
France has always been and will always remain a nation of peasants
We can argue ad infinitum as to why this is, but suffice to say that a strong culture of civil liberties & a general sense of fairness (and many other things) ensures britain has nothing that's important in common with the french

Framer

The police priority should be to stop arson and fight fires where they are started regardless of their current training whatever that consists of.

The other social priority is to get the BBC to undertake a review of their recruiting to offer the balanced reporting they have obliged fractionally to do of late e.g. last night's Question Time had something approaching an audience that reflected our society for the first time, and the smug statists did not like it up 'em.

Herbert Thornton

Mr Blackburn originally gave us the impression that the House of Commons consensus was that the police basic training should include training in riot control, but that David Cameron was against it -
http://www.pbase.com/mtu_fulani/image/137169239/original

Since then, what he wrote has been quite significantly changed.

Why has that happened?