A further toughening of police tactics when dealing with rioters is on the cards in Britain, according to a report in the Guardian on 1 December.  This follows a report in the same newspaper on 30 November – the subject of our blog yesterday – on raising the possibility of more aggressive policing of riots.

The London Metropolitan Police (the Met)is considering the purchase of three water cannon to use against rioters.  According to the Guardian, the Met is also training more officers to support its baton round teams so that plastic bullets can be deployed more “spontaneously” against rioters.

Comment by Antigone1984: Here we go again! How our western police forces must envy their counterparts in Egypt or Saudi Arabia or China where there are just no restrictions on police brutality! We are particularly tickled by the idea of plastic bullets being fired “spontaneously” at rioters.

The aristocrats now back in government in the UK are at one with their 18 C forebears in the ruthlessness with which they are prepared to stamp out public dissidence. There has been much talk in government quarters of beefing up law-and-order provisions. There has been virtually no emphasis on dealing with the causes of the recent riots: poverty, educational disadvantage and unemployment. It’s much easier – and far cheaper – to deal with the symptoms of public discontent by cracking a few heads than by mobilising public investment to eliminate the root causes of the present discontent.