More headlines ripped from the pages of Google News. The quote from eGov monitor about Cameron saying that the Met's senior officers were wrong to treat the riots as public disorder instead of criminality set off a predictable uproar at the Met was somewhat unfair if the Met and the vacationing Cameron could only have communicated with each other via carrier pigeon.

However, Cameron and the Met knew within the first hours of the riots that the incidents couldn't be controlled by the 'softly softly' domestic policy of the British government and should have switched gears. This fact brought forth a diatribes from a worker in the financial sector who wrote for the Market Oracle. I think he might have connected too many dots and flung around too many accusations but his fury was justified. See here and here for his op-eds.

However, for Cameron to up-end decades of policy and order an adequate police response, he would need the political winds at his back. And for the Met to go ahead on its own initiative to order the police would have required having someone at the top at the Met with the political clout to make the order stick. (If I recall the top post was vacant at the time the riots broke out, but I'd go back and check to be sure.)

And yet the problem the Met and Cameron initially faced was circular: if the police had cracked down at the start, the riots would have been quickly contained, leading to the accusation of unnecessary police force! Even with the relatively mild police crackdown, there were such accusations. See the headline from the Socialist Worker, below. The problem shouldn't have been such that it froze the Met and Cameron, but there's nothing like Monday-morning quarterbacking.

Financial Times - Elizabeth Rigby, Jim Pickard - ‎45 minutes ago‎
The army might also be called on for support if riots occur again. Police tactics were revisited many times in the debate as politicians voiced anger that innocent
UK riots: four days of chaos that reshaped the political landscape

The Guardian - ‎45 minutes ago‎
'This is not about poverty, this is about culture,' David Cameron told parliament. 'In too many cases, the parents of these children – if they are still around – don't care where their children are or who they are with, let alone what they are doing. ...

Rioters could be sprayed with dye says David Cameron
Mirror.co.uk - ‎5 hours ago‎
By Mirror.co.uk 11/08/2011 David Cameron has not ruled out allowing police to spray rioters with dye so they can be identified and arrested later. The controversial tactic has been used in other countries, most famously by the apartheid regime in South ...

UK riots: text of David Cameron's address to Commons
Telegraph.co.uk - ‎9 hours ago‎
And, as I said yesterday, while they would not be appropriate now, we do have in place contingency plans for water cannon to be available at 24 hours notice. Some people have raised the issue of the Army. The Acting Commissioner of the Metropolitan ...

Nations Mocking Britain Over Riots
Mathaba.Net - ‎9 hours ago‎
Libya's Foreign Minister, the Assistant Secretary of the General People's Committee for Foreign Liaison and International Cooperation, said that British Prime Minister Cameron had lost all legitimacy and should step down, because of the force used ...

Cameron uses riots as excuse to crack down
Socialistworker.co.uk - Tom Walker - ‎8 hours ago‎
And another Tory, Conor Burns, called on Cameron to “scrap the Human Rights Act”. Tory father of the house Sir Peter Tapsell even called for Cameron to round up “hoods” and put them in Wembley stadium. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad used this tactic ...

UK Riots: PM Announces £30 Million To Rebuild Communities And Raft Of New ...

eGov monitor - ‎5 hours ago‎
In addition, the Prime Minister said senior officers were wrong in treating the looting as public disorder when it should have been treated as criminal acts. However, the Prime Minister was effusive in his praise of the brave work done by police ...