Tottenham riots last night........

[Arthur Little]

Ho, hum ... ... well ... hopefully the riots have been quelled - and all's quiet on the "Western front"!

[somebody]

Wow was a bit surrel last week and was only a few miles from myself some of the looting. Along with others in my local area I ended up sitting outside a pub wondering what the hell might happen. Others in my local area were sitting in strategically placed Pubs at other parts of the area. One thing about shutting the telephone and data social networks down the normal folk working alongside the police and community both for the clear up and preparing for the worse used the same networks and social networking systems shutting them down would cause a mass panic and possibly make things a lot worse...
I like others was countering claims on twitter regarding my local area saying look nothing is happening. This i'm pretty sure helped to stop bystander type youths who give the type who might loot or fight cover and courage did not turn up. It also reassured those worried at home that there local streets were ok albeit very empty

Before someone says we were not needed and the police would not want "villgiantes" well for a start our poor very out of their depth community officers were in charge as most of the "regular police" until reinforcements came later were defending key places, the normal people were worried and certainly wanted no confrontational incidents to occur if at all possible. If they do have to cut funding in the police and lets face it funding every where has to be cut other wise there really will be issues in the longterm.. I think like as in the distant past irregular assistants for the local police constable may need to be created I presume under the guise of the special constables???

One thing which was good is the rest of the community actually got drawn together by the disgust and fear of what was going on.

Sadly it won't be the last time this will happen i believe and possibly worse. But saying that things often work themsleves out..

But i think a lot of factors have come in to play to cause the riots and there are a lot of angry people which while not the actual looters (the core were for sure were organised while anarchists were involved in some incidents from what people caught up in the grief i know personally have said) There are major issues that the parties need to stop point scoring on and like the worries of a double dip recession start cross party war cabinet type work to resolve. Will it happen naaa but hey ho I guess some how the normal person will get by