Just curious to see the spread of opinion here as to the events in London. Consider it a very small sample of the UK population to see if I can confirm my findings on Facebook.

I'm split between two and three. I ended up with three.

Responding with ever more force isn't the answer, in my opinion. It will just alienate further. To my mind, the media has a part to play here.

We watched maybe 15 minutes of live coverage around 1830 yesterday, and it was blindingly obvious as soon as the crowd of youngsters were told they were being broadcast on live television they began to act up. Before that, they were just milling about aimlessly.

This morning, the BBC News channel was explaining in great detail just how stretched the Met Police were last night. Red rag to a bull, I don't think.

It's also patently obvious that most of the "rioting" is theft, pure and simple.

I don't know what the answer is. Young people need jobs, to earn some respect, and respect their elders. We've let a lot of things slip in the country, and we're only beginning to see the results. Who is to blame can be debated till kingdom come, but I reckon we're all to blame one way or another for letting it get this bad.

The problem is that they are no llonger riotting for a cause.

To begin with it started because some guy was shot and killed by the police and people were peacefully protesting about it.

Then it got violent.

Then people started to realise that if they gather in large enough numbers the police are pretty much powerless to stop them.

Then people started systematically breaking in to shops in groups to stock up on plasma tvs and trainers.

There is nothing more than "fun" and greed fuelling these riots now. There was a video from a mobile phone of Debenhams (in Croydon?) with a couple of black guys talking to each other saying "We should get some watches or something".

The only way this will be stopped is by sending in enough man power to overpower it (i.e. the army).

Not sure how to prevent something like this in the future though. The country is pretty much f*cked IMHO.

Pie.

Send in the Army? Really?

Vindicate the government's decision to cut the police force by consenting to the idea of having the armed forces patrolling our streets? What a cracking idea. Lets have another Peterloo Massacre, it's been a couple of hundred years, we must be about ready for a reminder.

We definitely need to increase man power to stop these riots.

Just the increased man power and visibility. There is no reason even to arm them. Just the numbers alone will allow the police to regain control. At the moment though the police are losing and it doesn't look like there is any sign of them regaining control. If it goes on another night then something more drastic needs to be done.

No amount of discussions will stop this as there is no reason to them in the first place other than greed and boredom.

I work in Croydon.

The Petrol station next door has been looted. So has John Lewis / curries up the road. Many of my colleagues live in and around the looted areas and were pretty scared last night.

The guys in the Petrol station were in there when a large gang of youths smashed the windows and robbed them.

Send in the army? Yes if necessary. A message needs to be sent that society won't tolerate this behaviour. If a few looters get killed .. well .. better that than a few innocent bystanders / shopkeepers / business owners.

These twats aren't rioting, they are robbing and looting and imposing their will on the rest of society. It should be stopped - forcefully and an example made of those who are caught.

Didge.

Much as it pains me to use such a Daily Mailesque phrase, but where are the parents? From what I've seen, most of the people rioting are teenagers, why the [LIFTED] are their parents even letting them out of the house at the moment?

"I want you back home by 3am at the latest. Oh, and pick up an iPad for your mother's birthday if you can."

Well quite. There's a large number of people who don't give a damn about anyone but themselves. Quite a lot of them are parents and their kids think the same.

As to sending the army in, we can't. Not particularly for any moral reason (although that's evidently the case) but because we simply don't have them available. The major portion of our armed forces are currently overseas, fighting in dusty hellholes for the personal ambition of leaders we don't even follow any more. It would take days to pull them back to the UK even if we had the transport capability to do it, which we don't.

The army can't help us because of the stupidity and arrogance of the people we have allowed to lead us either by voting for them or by omission in failing to vote. The political classes bailed out the financial classes rather than spending the money on public services and 'the services' and now we don't have enough of either of the latter two to protect our homes and businesses or provide for those who haven't benefitted from our incredibly unbalanced society.

if I was religious I'd be praying for everyone in London, I fear this isn't over yet.

Jon

Our cleaner just called in. She was attacked on her way home yesterday by a gang of youths - many busses were cancelled in south london so she tried to walk home from another cleaning job. She had her bag stolen with her bus pass, phone and a small amount of cash.
This woman is in her late 50s and is about 4'2".!!!
Didge.

In a similar possition to Heather.
The underlying cause of the problem needs to be thoroughly investigated and addressed. However, the original cause of the first riot has been completely lost and, as other have said, we're now looking at rampant theft and violence for the sake of it.

The police have lost a huge amount (if not all) of the respect of a great many of the communities they are supposed to serve and we are seeing the results. We're also seeing the result of the massive disenfranchisement of the young people of this country. If you tell people long enough and often enough that they are worthless hoody wearing criminals and take away all the avenues they have to not be so then sooner or later your going to get exactly what you told them they were all along. Youth services have been systematically decimated for years, politicans and the police have been more than willing to villify young people as easy targets (they don't vote much afterall, why should they care about their opinions).

Police resources from across the country need to be co-ordinated and directed to get the streets back under control. All sending in the army will do, even assuming we were in a possiition to do so, will just get people killed and further inflame the situation.

Send in the water cannons, tear gas and rubber bullets, round the thieving scum up and send them to Afghanistan to be human shields and IED discovery units.

You've said pretty much what I wanted to here.

I must say however that I don't think sending in the army would be a bad idea, it seem's at the moment the police simply can't handle the numbers of people who are doing this.
We discussed this at length at the office today and there was one thing we all agreed on; this is far less likely to happen here because people have respect for (or fear for) the police here, either way, its effective. I wouldn't think twice if I saw someone being rude to a policeman in the UK, but here I know even rudeness would have it's consequences. If someone gets caught looting here, I know there would be sufficient punishments whereas I don't have that same faith in the system back there.

I'm afraid I disagree. Whether the communities this is going on in still 'respect the police' or not is irrelevant to the people kicking in Currys windows and nicking laptops. How is that making a statement about community policing? They're doing it not because they feel they're being oppressed, they're doing it because they have a chance to take something they can't afford without paying for it. It's long got beyond any sort of protest context (it did that as soon as the peaceful protest on Thursday turned into a riot), it's just plain lawlessness and opportunism. These people don't disrespect the police, they disrespect everything. They disrespect the local people they're putting out of a job. They disrespect the fire brigades and ambulance staff the police are having to spend a large portion of their manpower protecting. They disrespect the people trying to get home to their families on the buses they throw planks through the windows of. They have no cause. There is no justification for their actions. It is plain simple avarice, selfishness and a desire to revel in the simple joy of violence.


There are millions of young people in the country. There are thousands of rioters. Why aren't the rest doing the same?


I have a horrible feeling some is going to be killed soon anyway. You can only do so much damage without someone being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Jon

The army is overkill - they're trained for warfare, not public disorder, and if you bring in the army you are admitting that the Police aren't capable of keeping the peace.

If there's insufficient manpower then officers need to be drafted from other forces and call-me-Dave needs to rethink his policing cuts.

The military has no place in policing civilians.