The politics of our discontent

Even by the normal standards of Monday mornings, this one reeks. Just sniff around you. That burning smell, it’s either coming from the global stock markets as they strain against the US downgrade, or from those places in London where the rioting spread last night. Although the destruction in Brixton, Enfield, Walthamstow and Waltham Forest didn’t match up to that on Saturday in Tottenham, it still involved fires, missiles and clashes between rioters and the police. Reading the reports and watching the footage online, looting appears to have been one of the most popular sports of the evening.

In terms of the short-term politics — as opposed to the slightly more medium-term politics of what can be done to properly fix these problems — two issues stand out. The first is the continued absence of David Cameron (and, indeed, much of his Cabinet). Even though I’m not sure what the Prime Minister could solidly achieve by returning early from his holiday in Tuscany, there’s little doubting that his decision not to is becoming a presentational difficulty for him and his party. Already, the papers are stuffed with stories making suggestive comparisons between Cameron’s fortnight away and the situation back home, including one in yesterday’s Mail on Sunday headlined, “As economy burns, David Cameron flies his British tennis coach out and retires his Italian one”. And it has become a theme of Labour’s attacks too. Remember, one of the few public relations successes of the Brown government was when he curtailed his (albeit English) holiday to deal with a series of unhappy incidents in summer 2007. That was the time when we even spoke of the “Brown bounce”.

And then there’s the question of what the disturbances in London mean for Boris’s re-election chances, if anything. Ken Livingstone is, unsurprisingly, casting all sorts of aspersions about the “Tory cuts”. But I imagine the public’s judgement will more be based on how the Mayor of London and the Met are seen to react. In which case, CoffeeHousers, your thoughts would be appreciated.

UPDATE: On the matter of Cameron’s holiday, Benedict Brogan has this to add:

“The Chancellor’s intervention has another purpose: the Government doesn’t want to get to a position where David Cameron is having to leave his lilo and face the cameras. His holiday is already being swamped by the crisis, with ceaseless phone calls and consultations. But his advisers know there is a fine line between looking in control and looking panicked.”