Cameron and Miliband's differences

Steve E

What's the difference between Cameron's latest PR wheeze and John Major's Back to Basics campaign?

Sally Chatterjee

Sometimes you can diagnose an illness but there is no cure.

Publius

Miliband is utterly, hopelessly out of his depth on this whole question.

He is still talking about what he calls "values", and is stuck in the tired old riff about "inequality".

No doubt he expects "values" to be taught for an hour a week in his Comprehensive schools, and "inequality" to be somehow magicked away by tweaking with the benefits system.

And he dares to call the Conservatives shallow on this.

Mrs ML Bonwick-Jones

They are both right, one only difference being that the likes of David cameron and Iain Duncan -Smith have been thinking about how to deal with these problems for years in opposition whist this is a new hobby horse for ed Miliband who instead of trying to make his party a credible opposition he has found another battle to fight, i have no idea how he can keep this attitude of his going for 4 years he will just burn himself out.

Vulture

Just stop for a moment and analyse Cameron's words.

>Social problems 'ARE BACK at the top of my agenda'
When did they go away and why?

>'I HAVE AN AMBITION to turn around the lives of 125,000 youngsters...'

Well, I have an ambition to win the Nobel prize for Literature but I don't think its going to happen.

No fresh legislation. No new laws. No firm promises. This guff is as empty as his 'cast iron referendum guarantee' and anyone who believes him is a credulous fool.

These are weasel words, people, trotted out by an old PR hand to temporarily appease a justly angry and frightened nation.

Cameron knows full well that he cannot and will not do anything substantive to prevent future Tottenhams, Ealings and Croydons.

He cannot jail young criminals because the Human Rights Laws won't let him and he won't suspend them; he will not build more prisons; he will not reintroduce national service; curb immigration nor reverse the Left-liberalism that has led us to this abyss.

Cameron has no solutions : as a fully paid up left-liberal he is part of the problem.

Steve E

Remember John Major?

Remember Back to Basics?

Remember Edwina Currie?

Adultery is a sin.

Billy Blofeld

I think there is a link between violence and lack of direct democracy i.e.

- The public would never put up with the level of hand wringing forced on us by Progressive politicians

- People would feel that bankers and politicians were whipped into shape - if they felt their votes actually counted for something.

The UK and Greece are in flames and Norway has has a mad gunman on the loose. Look at this info-graphic and the three countries which are at the bottom of the pile when it comes to Direct Democracy:

http://yfrog.com/klj2meoj

Also note that Switzerland is at the opposite end of the scale - and then note that their currency is booming.

Maybe The Spectator can look further into this apparent correlation with Direct Democracy?

Original data here:

http://www.atlas.bfs.admin.ch/core/projects/18/en-en/viewer.htm?18.0.en

Catherine Charles

Anyone who thinks the solution is national service has not had to deal with a bunch of illiterates anti-social ill-disciplined yobbos trying to become soldiers. Suggest you spend a short time as an RSM, corporal or junior officer before you inflict such poor material on the armed forces. It was bad enough having them in the TA!

Gideon Langart

At the Texas Rangers Headquarters there is a statue of a Ranger who stopped a riot single-handedly with a shotgun. It bears the legend "One riot, one Ranger"
Sixteen thousand Bobbies, no resolution.

Timmy

Lets not forget these problems were born on Blair and Brown's watch.

Verity

I endorse, with extreme malice and loathig for Cameron, every word that Vulture writes.

In addition, could the moron put his bloody jacket on? Why does he thinking going around half-dressed adds to his credibility or authority or anythig else? The man is way, way over-ambitious for his abilities, and his greedy sense of entitlement is the best emetic currently on the market. And you don't need a prescription. All you need is the internet, and there is Dave, making moronic, manipulative announcements half dressed.

He thinks "the little people" don't know how to dress, which is why he proposed attending, as the Prime Minister of Great Britain, the royal wedding in a lounge suit. So as not to intimidate "the little people", who he thought might be scared of toffs.

Someone clearly explained things to him forcefully, but his wife carried the banner by not wearing a hat. To a wedding! They obviously don't want "the little people" to be intimidated by their imagined grandeur.

Alan Thompson

The mistake John Major made was to call his initiative "Back to basics". What he should have said was "Forward with basics".

Nick

All Milliband is saying is we need to talk more to the protesters and listen to their grievances.

Why aren't the Tories attacking him for having no answers to today's problems.

Whilst talking to kids this morning Miliband got out his pen and took notes. If Cameron had done this he'd be immediately attacked by the likes of Ben Bradshaw or Harriet Harman as being so out-of-touch he has only started thinking about these issues and needs to mug up on the facts.

Andy Carpark

Boneless Dave's tie clashes with the graffiti. Boneless Dave could not even get that right. Boneless Dave would not win a kick in a riot.

DWPS

Good idea making marriage more attractive by attaching income tax concessions to it. Was how it used to be when the world was sensible. Unfortunately, as a corrective to current social problems (i.e. single parent families) it won't work because people on benefits don't pay income tax, so there's absolutely nothing to be gained by them getting hitched.

Judy

The really significant difference between Cameron & Milliband is that Cameron's focus is on changing the behaviour of a target core of people who are the group primarily responsible for the riot.

Miliband's focus at the moment is on setting up an enquiry, no doubt to be commissioned from experts of his own political persuasion and associated vested interest promoters, pushing a narrative of moral equivalence between bankers legally making huge profits, MPs cheating on their expenses and the criminal acts of the rioters. He also invokes every aspect of Coalition cuts loathed by the client state culture as being a significant factor behind the riots. At the same time, he claims he isn't doing any of this.

I don't agree that we have a broken society-- even the 125,000 families who Cameron fingers are not demonstrated to have been at the core of the riots-- but even if his analysis is wrong, focusing on changing the behaviour is the right thing to do. We used to have lots of bank robberies. The banks changed their security, and bank robberies virtually ceased. The US regularly used to have inner city riots during the summer. Now they don't, primarily because of zero tolerance policing, but the UK has.

David Ossitt

“Cameron also needs to have a hopeful narrative, a tale of how the broken society can be mended.”

First he must admit that it is not the whole of society that is broken, he must use plain simple language to explain that it is not the upper, middle or working classes that are broken.

And then he must have the courage to specifically identify all of those areas of society that are truly broken, in my opinion there are four distinct groups in this underclass.

There are those who choose to be unemployed and have either never worked or else have been unemployed for a considerably long time and find that what should be paid to provide the basics for life actually provides a life style that is much better than their neighbour who leaves home at 7am to toil all of his/her working day to earn a living.

And then there are those young women, usually teenagers, who to all intents and purposes make a lifestyle choice to live off of the backs of the taxpayer, by producing little bastards in order that the state will house, clothe and feed them and also pay for their cigarettes and bingo cards.

Third, are the professional scroungers (often foreigners) who fraudulently set up a multitude of identities all with their own national insurance numbers, so as to claim benefits for each of them. These often set up mortgages for each of these non-people.

Finally we have those youths who set themselves apart from normal society and because of this are almost unemployable (but not entirely) they achieve this in a number of ways, almost all are illiterate, almost all think that the world owes them respect, they all have visible attributes that would not be helpful in finding employment, tattoos’, facial piercing, strange hairstyles, a choice of clothing that can be intimidating and offensive and perhaps the worst few can speak English, many find it impossible to string more than two or three proper words together and few will give you eye contact. Many in this group can cross link to the first and second group.

There is also a subdivision of this last group and they are all black and as such will require additional special measures.

Simeon

What makes an old Etonian like Cameron think he has the solutions for the youth of today? When will the Tories realise that under their government huge swathes of this country lose hope. It happened in 1981 under Thatcher, and now its happening again. Why didn't this level of knee-jerk reaction happen when the students rioted earlier in the year, is it because they're middle-class & predominately white?

Steve E

Alan Thompson

The mistake John Major made with Back to Basics was nothing to do with semantics.

He was fornicating with a fellow member of the Cabinet while condemning other Conservative MPs for being corrupt.

Let he who is without sin cast the first stone...

Nick

Cameron and Clegg were born into privilege so will never understand what it feels like to have nothing and no prospect of a successful life. How can a cabinet full of millionaires be representative of the people? What does this say about our educational and political system? Millions of ordinary people are beginning to feel oppressed by a privileged and increasingly decadent elite and are becoming resentful of being told to show it respect for moral reasons.

Dennis Churchill

Vulture
August 15th, 2011 3:41pm
Exactly, he thinks words are substitutes for action.
The Conservatives could win a landslide victory in a snap election called now and with Cast Iron guarantees on repealing the Human Rights Act, a E.U Referenendum, an English Parliament and a halt to all third world immigration other than 6 months’ permits where companies cover all costs including health insurance. They could also throw in a measure on looking for ways to resettle any non-nationals in our prisons.

A Smith

We need InstaFIX. Has anybody got some?

Steve E

Lord save us from Churchillian rhetoric.

What the feck is a Referenendum?

Is that some kind of Tory Patois?

Boudicca

Deadwood is rather hamstrung when it comes to talking about marriage as he produced two children out of wedlock and failed to register as the father of the first because he was rather busy that day. He has, belatedly, rectified the omission of a marriage certificate but only because an unmarried father of two would have even less chance of getting into No.10 than he does anyway.

As for Cameron: he is just talking again. There has been no action to encourage marriage and discourage single-motherhood since the GE. In fact, Osborne's idea of removing Child Benefit from couples where one pays 40% tax and the other has no income because they do what is right and stay at home to look after the kids is the exact opposite of what is needed.

He will be able to do nothing about the broken society and the thugs who rule the roost in our cities unless and until he repeals the HRA and removes us from the ECHR. And he will do neither of those things. the best you can say about Cameron is that unlike Blair)on the whole, he is well-meaning. Unfortunately, he is completely ineffectual.

Britishpolitics!!!!!

I really an tired of Mr Cameron. He is full of hot air and bluster - thought that the Labour party were the experts in Spin and Gesture politics - Cameron takes it to a whole new level. Put him beside Clegg and it's like watching Laurel and Hardy!!!!

gwynne pickering

two words can sum the cause of last weeks riots / no work.

oldtimer

@Nick 4:36pm

They were not protesters. They were looters, arsonists and in a couple of cases murderers.

I am unclear if the choice of word "protester" is yours or Milibands - though the BBC has been heard to use it. It is a wrong choice, an abuse of the English language and typical of those who wish to steer an issue onto other ground to suit their argument. No more use of the word "protester" again please unless you are accurately attributing it to someone who actually used it.

Ron Todd

The most action we will get is danegeld paid to 'community leaders' in the form of well paid jobs on commisions or quangoes and big un-audited woges of cash for 'charities' that work in the 'communities'

Dennis Churchill

Nick
August 15th, 2011 5:10pm
Do you think Miliband can understand what it:” feels like to have nothing and no prospect of a successful life.”?
He hardly comes from a typical family does he? What were the chances of him ending up on a sink estate?

Occasional Ostrich

Steve E @3:57pm

Adultery is a sin?

Only when someone spills the beans (or whatever else you call it).

Occasional Ostrich

Steve E @5:04pm

Nobody knew about that until a while after he got himself trashed in 1997. It was the other f*ck*rs falling out of the woodpile that wrecked it. Oh, PLUS the use of the word "back". Another poster pointed out how it should have been phrased.

mccord

Billy Blofeld has got something in the theory about ‘Direct Democracy’ doubt it is aligned to ‘to violence’ but it goes along way to explaining the frustration felt by the public over the current political situation in the UK, which is very grave.
Both Cammeron and Miliband are showing a complete lack of understanding of the situation.
All people in the UK need is to feel safe and secure in the knowledge that they are a part of our society.
The UK people need transparent government which they can effect, they need a proper education system that they can enjoy and become involved in, they need a proper health care system that looks after them when they need looking after and above all they want politicians to be honest, truthful and respectful to their needs. They need politicians who think things through, consult with the public provide legislation that is in the public good. Not politicians, who cure favour with the media, blame others when things go wrong, act in a stubborn arrogant and self-opinionated way. Mr Cameron, Mr Miliband and Mr Clegg you need to consider can you provide what this country needs and if you can’t step down and let others try. Stop blaming society and start supporting it.

TGF UKIP

By speaking as if Cameron were going to determine policy, you are being deliberately disingenuous again James. As your dear editor made plain on the final Week in Westminster of the last parliamentary term, Clegg has been given by Dave an absolute and explicit lock on government policy.

What your boy Dave thinks or says is therefore largely irrelevant, so it would be much more informative and instructive for us if you told us what your other best friends Nick & Co intended governemnt policy to be.

Paddy

My word, the socialists are out today. No work to do.

No one thought to ask Miliband what he had been doing for the past 13 years. All the money Labour threw at these areas....all wasted.

Miliband talks with "fork-tongue" or talking out of both sides of his mouth as Gove said.

It's about time he came up with some policies....instead of trying to score political points and calling for another Inquiry which we can ill afford.

By the way the operation hasn't made much difference.

Steve E

Occasional Ostrich

Are you seriously suggesting that if Major had inserted Forward instead of Back he would have had a coherent ideology?

Words fail me.

James de la Mare

McCord - good sensible comment, and not polluted by the usual party political line we find too often here. There have always been gangs and probably always will be. Most do no harm, so Cameron needs to focus on a harmful mindset, not a gang per se. As an old Etonian, there's no reason whatsoever why he shouldn't understand the problem just as well as those non-Etonians who comment here. Better, in fact, because he has more sources of info. about the riots. And for all those who think there're too many Etonians in his cabinet, look back fifty years to Eden's and Macmillan's - and we had better order in society with a lot more Etonians in the cabinet.

Of course it's rubbish advocating conscription - how the hell can the army today deal with all those people? The solution has to be back in the families. No father at home, and when one comes home, he's not allowed to act firmly against juvenile misbehaviour.

Much of this trouble is due to the feminisation of society - no women at home to care for kids, out at work, tired, worried, fed up with husbands and boy friends, but wanting careers, homes, cars, holidays and consumer goods galore.

Nobody has even started to talk about this yet. It's about time they did. Until we see sense, then kids from the bottom end will rampage and misbehave. Nor can Conservatives escape blame for this - it was they who've created a culture that everything has to be an investment in monetary terms - and there'll always be many without that. For them the easy way to it is a short cut, i.e. crime.

ButcombeMan

Milliband HAS to call for an enquiry because, to fail to do that, would mean signalling he understands the main reason for the lawlessness is the Leftis andf Labour driven "Harmanisation"of family life, the failure of leftist education and a general failure to enforce rigorously enough ordinary law and standards of behaviour. Note, especially the drug laws, which have fed the infectious, gang & drugs culture, which has so incapacitated much of Britain's youth.

Otherwise Miliband is up the creek, admitting all this social breakdown accelerated on NuLabour's watch.

The rioters are Blair's feral youth and Harman's bequest to the nation.

Harman also knows this, that is why she was so uncomfortable when Gove chewed her up.
Watch her eyes.

Dennis Churchill

TGF UKIP
August 15th, 2011 6:00pm
I think the rioting changed everything and has shifted majority opinion to the right.
It will be interesting to see the polls after the smell of smoke dies down.
I don’t think Cameron will call a snap election because a large Conservative majority would not suit him, he likes having the Libs there to blame for policies he supports but the party does not, such as the EU and the Human Rights Act.
Clegg and Miliband need to be careful. An election now is a nightmare scenario for both of them.Clegg has sacrificed the LibDems for the EU.A re-run election could not have been risked with Cameron’s ‘Cast Iron’ guarantee ,so he agreed a coalition and the end of his party as a serious force. Labour would need to defend the HRA and Open doors immigration policy which the electorate see as being at the heart of broken Britain.
The Conservatives should call an election using “National interest” as their excuse, a great pity they elected Cameron and not a Conservative.

David Ossitt

Steve E
“He was fornicating with a fellow member of the Cabinet while condemning other Conservative MPs for being corrupt.”

Wrong, that affair was over long before he was in power.

I S

Verity - For the love of Christ, are you still banging on about the Royal wedding!

I S

I sincerely doubt that our political classes, both in Europe and America, possess the ability or real-world experience to resolve the economic and social problems that we face.

Steve E

David Ossit

John Major stated in Parliament that negotiating with the IRA would 'turn his stomach' even while his Secretary of State for Northern Ireland was doing exactly that.

Mendacious and an adulterer.

No more lectures on morality from the Tories, if you please.

Dennis Churchill

To pick up on my earlier point about how the first polls would be interesting, this is from the Telegraph’s Blog:
“Recent polls show the public tending towards the right’s perspective. In one YouGov poll looking at the causes of the riots, 52% of people cited poor parenting, 47% gang culture, 46% criminality, 45% lack of punishment. Inequality (16%) and unemployment (13%) were not regarded as the main causes.
84% thought the police response was not tough enough. 75% think that human rights law has hampered the police’s ability to respond.”
There will never be a better opportunity for the Conservatives to go to the electorate.

2trueblue

Cameron is letting Millipede rewrite history. This is Bliars legacy, born, bred and fed under Bliar. He removed aspiration, inspiration and education and replaced it with the state. He ran the most corrupt parliament and failed to rectify it. MPs who swindled tens of thousands of £s and in some instance hundreds of thousands got away with an apology to the house. Why are we surprised that morality is at such a low ebb? This is the result of Liebores 13yrs. Cameron needs to get that cross, before Liebore rewrite history with the help of..... OUR BBC. Get going Cameron or you will be going, taking with you any chance of getting the UK sorted.

Holly ......

If we want Cameron to 'have the guts' to carry through any of these things we MUST back him.
The members of the public must stop worrying
about criminals, their gangs and, whether we give them money or not in the form of benefits. We have to stop worrying about the punishment of the guilty ahead of the innocent.

Public and private sectors together, not one constantly fighting the other.
The union members, should stop striking. They should help structure and impliment changes necessary to improve our schools and services, which have been proven to be woefully lacking in good practices, care or responsibility of THEIR actions/inaction. This is vital. They should no longer allow themselves to be used as a battering ram to reforms against the Tories, because let's be frank here, the union leaders were silent while the teachers were threatened with the sack if they spoke out at what was wrong with our schools. The same goes for NHS staff and a whole raft of other services.
Where was the union backing for their members when their members lived in a culture of silent fear for their jobs?

Union members are part of problem as well as part of the medicine too, not just innocent bystanders in all this, with no part to play and even less willingness to change anything at all.

This morning I listened to a news report about a mum of two, of good character and, this was her first offence, who 'stored' looted goods for looters. She was given a part custodial sentence.
The way the reporter spoke was in a sympathetic voice to this poor dear's plight.

Where was her 'good character' when she thought it okay to store goods she knew were looted?
Where was her concern for her two little one's?

OUR media must stop with the bleeding heart reporting and make it clear this IS a lesson
to ALL those who think they are immune to being punished because, they are 'poor', out of work, in a gang, or a single parent.

This I hope, does not make her feel 'badly done to', or treated 'unfairly', but makes her MORE determined NEVER to put her liberty
or children at risk again.
I hope she will in future CHERISH both.

Only we can give Cameron 'the guts' to make the changes we profess we want, by backing him, IDS, Gove and other ministers who have the mammoth task of sorting this out.

They can not do this EVER if the purpetrators, media and the bleeding heart brigade constantly scream blue murder at every turn.

Who will find the next few months or years tougher?

A. The looter getting three meals a day with access to 'gadgets' in prison, or continued taxpayer subsidised housing and benefits?
OR

B. The people who have lost loved ones forever, lost their homes and had their business were wrecked, looted and distroyed?

We MUST all back the 'B' group, keep them constantly in the FRONT of our minds, otherwise we will fail both 'A' and 'B'.

I have no doubt Cameron & Co have the determination to impliment policies to deal with this, but without our constant & collective will, they will not be able to.

Dimoto

oldtimer said:
"They were not protesters. They were looters, arsonists and in a couple of cases murderers".

Correct. But the police, lazily assuming that the first two days were a "protest" and standing off, is precisely what went wrong (Cameron's and May's euphemistic "wrong tactics").
The police probably took their cue from the "authoritative" BBC, who still occasionally call the riots "protests".

Baron

what differences would that be, James?

one believes two dozen policemen would do the job, the other believes it should be two dozen and one part timer, hmmm.

Steve E

2TrueBlue

I, for one, would be delighted if Cameron went to the country.

There wouldn't be a better time to ask him about his alledged drug use.

Tommo

How sadly predictable that Cameron offered none of the measures that anyone can see are needed and the majority of the people clearly want. That charlatan was never going to have the stomach to do it because it goes against all his left-liberal instincts.

I'm just waiting for Orde to get the Met job now: that would really put the tin lid on it.

However, those who say that this is all the fault of Bliar and McBust are quite wrong, albeit that that execrable pair did their level best to accelerate the pace of decline of our society. No, every PM from Wilson onwards has his or her hands dirty with this.

Master Cobbett

I'm praying ---literally if awkwardly-- that Cameron doesn't give in to Miliband's absurd demands for an enquiry . Can you just imagine yet another judicial asinine whitewash resulting in an attempt to lighten the taxpayers wallet, to scatter round inner city areas all justified under the need for fairer rewards for all, an end to stigmatisation, more equality of opportunity, etc., and all the while minimising the culpability of the disorderly, the feckless and the dissolute.

Paddy

I think the public would be quite surprised how few police officers there are on duty at any given time.

I am talking of less than a dozen in the largest Boroughs of London on a Saturday night....not enough officers to patrol the streets.

How would you like to face the mob with so few men.

This is because Labour GOT RID of a lot of police officers....yes I mean Labour got rid of police officers.

They then proceeded to tie them to their desks....to fill in endless forms and because of rioters human rights could not prosecute them.

It takes about 4 hours to deal with one arrest.

Too many years of the namby pandy Guardian. the BBC and of course....our caring sharing Labour Party.

Cynic

>DWPS "Unfortunately, as a corrective to current social problems (i.e. single parent families) [income tax incentives] won't work because people on benefits don't pay income tax, so there's absolutely nothing to be gained by them getting hitched. Currently the benefits system makes it more profitable to live apart than to live together. That could be changed as well as giving tax incentives to marriage (as there used to be before Gordon Brown removed the allowance).

Occasional Ostrich

Steve E @ 6:13pm

No, I'm not seriously suggesting it.

"Words fail me"

Ye-es, that is apparent.

Occasional Ostrich

Holly ...... @ 8:00pm

"If we want Cameron to 'have the guts' to carry through any of these things we MUST back him."

Yes, indeed. Although we must then be prepared to stand behind him with the metaphorical baseball bat, to make sure
he doesn't deviate from the chosen course.

DavidH

Cameron is looking more like a man than Miliband on this. He's engaging more with the issues and people involved and looking further afield for answers. And he's right - the rioters were not poverty stricken. Even on benefits, people in The UK have a higher real income and a more secure future than many who consider themselves well off in other parts of the world. If Cameron can get traction with some concrete and inovative solutions to the problems he identifies then some good may yet come of this. Or is that too much to hope for?

Sir Everard Digby

Cameron is correct; our society is broken but not in the way he perceives.

The fracture is between the political classes (a group Labour expanded massively since 1997)and the rest of us.

Both Millipede and Cameron speak as though the events of last week were magicked from the ether and could not possibly have anything to do with the legislation they have passed or the strategies they pursued or still pursue.

Regrettably neither has any plans to address the real problem. We now vote for people who have absolutely no intention of doing anything useful beyond spending our money and pursuing their own agendas.The country does not matter.

Millipede's waffling about inequality is particularly ironic - which party passed more legislation than any other on this subject in recent times?

Presumably he is admitting a failing by the Labour Party in this area? Will he be sacking Harriet? Oh no ,he can't can he? That would be 'unfair'

Politics has become fantasy in the UK and should be treated as such.

xenophon

Miliband had the opportunity to rise to the occasion and help to start addressing the fundamental sickness of our society. Instead he feebly calls for an inquiry, a parody of liberal hand-wringing.

Cameron has real leadership abilities and has been given an opening to bring about a decisive change in the country. That means restoring discipline in schools and in homes, reforming the police into a force that will again defend life and property, and providing genuine (including fiscal) support for two parent, heterosexual families within stable marriage. It means root and branch reform of welfare so that every able-bodied adult prefers the self-worth that results from gainful employment to the rudderless degradation of living off the efforts of others.

The liberal experiment of the last fifty years attempted to cut loose from Christian morality, except where it suited liberalism dishonestly to borrow from Christian standards. With the demonstrable failure of that experiment there is a great chance to restore respect and dignity. This could be a watershed; or it could be a staging post in our further decline. Miliband's approach seems to favour the latter outcome.

TomTom

". Instead he feebly calls for an inquiry, a parody of liberal hand-wringing."

Poor Miliband, Daddy brought him up in an ideological straitjacket and he simply has no idea of our Culture as the son of a Belgian illegal immigrant. He really should have developed a core philosophy rather than be simply a cipher for the usual twaddle from committee

Rhoda Klapp

Sir Everard Digby has the right of it. No enquiry or action of this lot is going to get anywhere near identifying the real problems.

Derek Pasquill

Potty politicians pontificate piffle.

Snafu.

Johnnydub

Dimoto: "Correct. But the police, lazily assuming that the first two days were a "protest" and standing off, is precisely what went wrong (Cameron's and May's euphemistic "wrong tactics").
The police probably took their cue from the "authoritative" BBC, who still occasionally call the riots "protests".

No - this is their excuse.

What it really was that they saw a mob of angry black kids, and with the combination of the MacPherson report and the Ian Tomlinson case thought "I'm not going to lose my job, pension and liberty" if they are on camera whacking some unruly kids. The BBC and the Guardian et al would have gone batshit crazy had the police gone in.

As the Police have not been seen inflicting some rigorous justice (in the same way as the the unhindered looting was broadcast) this will happen again.