The worst rioting in decades will cost the country more than money

Riots in England

The fire this time

Aug 13th 2011 | from the print edition

BY AUGUST 11th, a shell-shocked London was picking up the pieces, as were Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and many other English cities. The apocalyptic images that had dominated the news for four nights—of outmanoeuvred police in heavy riot gear pitted against mocking, mobile and mostly young gangs of violent looters—had given way to more purposeful policing and prime ministerial promises of law and order. Firebombed police stations, burning city centres and gaping shopfronts were yielding to broom-wielding community clean-ups.

Whether or not the rioting is truly over (rain helped to discourage more outdoor mayhem), the scale, speed and viciousness of this week’s events have shaken the country to the core. England has seemed a nation almost at war. The unrest is a blow to the police, caught flat-footed and unable to ensure order. Most of the politicians who scurried back from foreign holidays looked as shell-shocked as everyone else. By dreadful coincidence members of the International Olympic Committee came over this week to see how preparations for next year’s games were going; most of the events will take place near the scene of some of the worst rioting. Big questions have been raised about inequality and social malaise.

Britain has a history of contagious rioting. From the Peasants’ Revolt in the 14th century through the grain riots of the 18th to the racial clashes in London in the 1980s and in the north in 2001, people have taken to the streets and to violence for a cause. But this upheaval is a puzzle. How it started is fairly clear; why it spread so quickly and turned into generalised looting is less so.

On August 4th police intending to arrest a young man in Tottenham, north London, shot him dead instead. Neither the Metropolitan Police (missing much of its upper echelons, thanks to the phone-hacking scandal) nor the Independent Police Complaints Commission, charged with investigating the shooting, did much to keep Mark Duggan’s family informed. One lot of rumours said Mr Duggan had fired on the police; another, more widely believed in Tottenham, was that the cops had “executed” him because he was black. Neither version has so far been substantiated.

A march to the police station on August 6th by the Duggan family and around 300 others from the Broadwater Farm council estate, scene of a bloody riot between locals and the police in 1985, to ask for “justice” started peacefully but turned nasty. The police were overwhelmed: 26 officers were injured, shops were vandalised or burned. Hour after hour looters, most of them young and a few little more than children, helped themselves to trainers, mobile phones, televisions and the like, some wheeling loaded supermarket trolleys virtually under the noses of the cops.

So the riot began with a grievance. But unchecked, the violence and looting spawned a sprawl of copycat episodes, a sort of lawless shopping spree punctuated by ever-fewer references to the alleged police misdeeds, seemingly co-ordinated by social media and BlackBerry Messenger. On August 7th trouble broke out in various neighbourhoods around London. The carnage on August 8th was worse.

One of the big flashpoints on that day was Hackney, in north-east London. Hundreds of rioters lobbed petrol bombs and more at the police, torched vehicles, smashed shops and taunted shopkeepers as they robbed them. Much of it televised, the contagion spread across London and England. In Croydon a family-owned furniture store that had survived the Blitz succumbed to arson. Rioters swept through Bristol, Liverpool, Nottingham and, with especial vehemence, Birmingham.

By now politicians were hotfooting it back, to get a grip on a situation that had clearly spiralled out of control. David Cameron, returning early on August 9th, warned that even young malefactors would feel the full force of the law. He in effect told the police to throw everything they had at London. Borrowing from other forces, the number of officers on London’s streets was almost trebled, to 16,000. Rarely used Jankel armoured riot vehicles circulated. “Robust” action and a lot of arrests were requested and delivered.

On the night of August 9th London was peaceful—but Manchester and other cities burned. Three Asian men guarding property in Birmingham were killed when a car ran up on to the pavement and into them. The police have arrested a man on suspicion of murder; the father of one of the victims movingly appealed for calm. By August 10th, England’s cities were quiet, and the worst seemed over.

The first order of business, politicians of most stripes agree, is regaining control of the streets. That, thanks to the surge in manpower, seems largely achieved in London, though how long the surge can be maintained at other forces’ expense must be a question. The second is figuring out why riots on this scale took place. There are two broad schools of thought.

One is that they express the frustration of an underclass that feels increasingly marginalised. Technology and globalisation have increased returns to education, which its members lack. Budget cuts are beginning to close youth centres and affect pupils and students. These youths, the argument runs, see politicians who fiddle their expenses, or bankers who fiddle their bonuses, and see no reason not to help themselves. Poor and bored, they think it’s a bit of a laugh to cock a snook at the cops, and at the “rich people” who own businesses. They feel they have no stake in society and nothing to lose.

Yet not all the miscreants are obviously downtrodden. One up before the Highbury magistrate’s court on August 10th for looting, for example, was a 31-year-old teaching assistant. So to the second school of thought, which focuses on the police.

This argument is essentially that the police have been neutered by the political correctness forced on them over the years. And emphasis over the past decade or so on community policing—cosying up to the communities they police rather than laying down the law—has made them reluctant to alienate anyone.

As David Green, head of Civitas, a think-tank, puts it, “They are so paralysed by fear of being accused of racism that they softpedal whenever they encounter crime perpetrated by minorities,” as was the case in Tottenham. This gave the impression that the police were content simply to look on. Then, as episodes multiplied, they saw it as a public-order problem rather than the massive criminality it was. They switched into containment mode instead of arresting people, perhaps on orders from above.

The financial cost, after four days of rioting, is hard to calculate. The Association of British Insurers thinks its members may face over £200m ($320m) in claims. Even people who are not insured will be entitled to compensation from the police—ie, taxpayers—under the Riot (Damages) Act of 1886. On August 11th Mr Cameron outlined measures to help businesses and homeowners who had suffered. Pressure is also mounting on the government to rescind or reduce the 20% budget cut over this parliament imposed on the police.

A different sort of cost is that Britain’s standing abroad has taken an almighty knock. The French press suggests that Anglo-Saxon capitalism has produced a hopeless white underclass unique in Europe. China wags its finger over the perils of unregulated communications. Iran is helpfully offering human-rights monitors to ensure police restraint.

Above all, the riots of 2011 are bound to change the way England thinks about itself. Policing will be affected, but so, probably, will welfare policy, attitudes to young people and parenting, and much besides. This, to paraphrase the queen, is truly Britain’s annus horribilis.

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