This blog is now ending. Continuing coverage is here.
2.54pm:
• David Cameron has used a marathon statement in the Commons to announce a series of measures intended to show that the rioting crisis is over and that order has been restored. There were at least 10 separate announcements in the list (see 12.01pm) — some of which were relatively minor, or very provisional — but collectively they amounted to a reasonably weighty package which should convey the impression that, after a period when it looked weak, the government is now firmly back in control. The measures include a £20m high street support scheme that will help businesses affected by the rioting.
Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has also announced Cameron spend almost two-and-a half hours answering questions about the phone hacking affair in July and today he was on his feet even longer. (In fact, his statement went on for 2 hours and 45 minutes, breaking the 2hr 31m that George Osborne managed when he announced the comprehensive spending review). This may well be a record. After the phone hacking statement, Cameron told a journalist that going on for so long allowed MPs to «let off steam» and today’s statement seemed to have the same effect. At the end of his statement, Cameron insisted that the the government was staging a «fightback» on behalf of the law-abiding majority.
This is a time for our country to pull together.
To the law abiding people who play by the rules, and who are the overwhelming majority in this country, I say the fightback has begun, we will protect you, if you’ve had your livelihood and property damaged, we will compensate you. We are on your side.
And to the lawless minority, the criminals who’ve taken what they can get. I say: We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.
We need to show the world, which has looked on appalled, that the perpetrators of the violence we have seen on our streets are not in any way representative of our country – nor of our young people.
We need to show them that we will address our broken society and restore a sense of stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.
And a year away from the Olympics, we need to show them the Britain that doesn’t destroy, but that builds; that doesn’t give up but stands up; that doesn’t look back, but always forwards.»
• Cameron has admitted that the initial police response to the rioting was flawed. In what are probably the most critical comments he has made about the policing operation he has made, he said that they did not put enough officers on the street and did not recognise what they were dealing with.
What became increasingly clear earlier this week was that there were simply far too few police were deployed onto the streets. And the tactics they were using weren’t working.
Police chiefs have been frank with me about why this happened.
Initially the police treated the situation too much as a public order issue – rather than essentially one of crime.
The truth is they have been facing a new sort of challenge, with different people doing the same thing – basically looting – in different places all at the same time.»
• Cameron has rejected Ed Miliiband’s call for an immediate independent inquiry into the riots. But the prime minister did not rule one out entirely, saying that he wanted to let the Commons home affairs committee conduct its inquiry first. After that he would «take it from there», Cameron said. In his response to Cameron, Miliband said it was important to have an independent inquiry, not one «sitting in Whitehall hearing evidence from academic experts», but one «reaching out to those affected by these terrible events».
• Cameron also rejected Labour calls for him to shelve the government’s police cuts. Miliband and many other Labour MPs said that, in the light of the riots, it would be wrong to cut police budgets. But Cameron said he did not want the debate to become one about resources. «When you have deep moral failures you don’t hit them with a wall of money,» he said. He also insisted that it was possible to cut police budgets without affecting the number of officers available for frontline duty. «I can make this very clear pledge: at the end of this process of making sure our police budgets are affordable, we will still be able to surge as many police on to the streets as we have in recent days in London, in Wolverhampton, in Manchester,» he said. At any one time only 12% of officers are on the beat, he said. Labour were being «completely intellectually idle» because they refused to accept the possibility of reform, he said.
• The police have also said that 922 people have now been arrested in connection with the rioting in London, and 401 of them have been charged. Courts in London and other parts of the country are staying open 24 hours a day to process offenders.
2.23pm: Cameron has now finished. He spoke for two hours and 45 minutes, taking questions from 160 MPs. George Osborne, the chancellor, is speaking now. You can follow his statement on our business blog. I’ll post a summary of Cameron’s statement, and all the other rioting developments, shortly.
2.18pm: An 11-year-old girl charged with criminal damage following disturbances in Nottingham, one of the youngest people charged in connection with the riots, has been given a nine-month referral order by magistrates.
Randeep Ramesh reports that the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitting smashing the window of a clothes shop in the city centre and throwing stones. She
received a nine month referral order, which is a non-custodial penalty to be decided by a young offenders panel.
The judge, Maurice Cooper, said the sentence of nine months was «longer than normally given for breaking windows» but reflected the seriousness of other events that occured in the city that night.
The girl, who was about to begin secondary school next term, had been in McDonalds that evening when a gorp of 30 or 40 boys walked past on Tuesday evening. She decided to join them saying in court that «evryone was egging me on».
In court her father said his daughter was «easily led on». He had urged her to apologise in court and her solicitor said that she wanted to plead guilty to acknowlegde wrong doing. She had previously been cautioned for criminal damage last year.
2.11pm: Our video team have put together this recording of David Cameron’s statement.
Cameron has now been on his feet from more than two and a half hours. That breaks the recent record for a parliamentary statement in recent times that was set by George Osborne, the chancellor, who managed two hours and 31 minutes when he announced the comprehensive spending review. I will try to find out if it’s an all-time record.
2.00pm: Back in the chamber, and Labour’s Chris Bryant says that when Winston Churchill (as a Liberal home secretary) sent troops to deal with rioters in Tonypandy, that made the situation worse. Cameron should not send in the army. But that is why maintaining police numbers is so important.
Cameron says Labour refuses to accept that the police can be reformed. «That is why the country is not listening to you,» he says.
1.57pm: Outside the Commons, a 68-year-old man left critically ill after he was attacked by rioters has been named by police. He is Richard Mannington Bowes, and was set upon as he tried to stamp out a fire during riots in Ealing, west London. He remains in a critical condition in hospital today after suffering serious head injuries on Monday night.
Speaking from the scene of the attack, Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane said he has been unable to contact the victim’s family and appealed to the assailant to turn himself in. The victim’s identity was established only when locals recognised his description and officers used his keys to enter his house. McFarlane said the investigation could turn into a murder inquiry.
Scotland Yard also released an image of the suspect. He is described as black, in his early 20s, of a big build, wearing a white T-shirt with writing on the front. He was also wearing a dark-coloured jumper over his shoulders. (source: Press Association)
1.48pm: Natascha Engel, the Labour MP who chairs the backbench business committee, asks how Cameron will assure people who use the government’s e-petitions website to demand tough punishments for rioters that their petition will make a difference. (See 11.18am.)
Cameron says that the initiative is designed to ensure that parliament has to debate ideas proposed by the public.
1.42pm: Cameron says police authorities have not done a good job at holding chief constables to account.
1.38pm: Labour’s Nick Raynsford asks if Cameron will accept Boris Johnson’s claim that the police cuts should be abandoned.
Cameron says that at any one time only 12% of officers on the beat. Cameron says he refuses to accept that the police cannot be organised more effectively. Labour are being «completely intellectually idle», he says.
1.38pm:Mark Reckless, a Conservative, asks if Cameron will consider transferring powers over sentences from the sentencing council to parliament.
Cameron says he would like to give parliament more opportunities to scrutinise the sentencing council’s decision.
1.31pm: Labour’s Kevin Barron suggests that removing people from social housing, and putting them somewhere else – an idea being explored by Grant Shapps, the housing minister (see 11.18am) – will not help.
Cameron says he does not accept that.
1.30pm: Earlier I said that I thought David Cameron’s announcement about giving the police new powers to order people to remove face masks was old. (See 11.37am.) That’s not quite true. Theresa May did mention this in her statement to the Commons in March, after the violence on the day of the TUC anti-cuts demo, but she only floated the idea of giving the police new powers. Cameron said today the police definitely would get new powers.
A masked rioter is seen in front of a burning car in Hackney Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
The police already have the power under the the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act to order protesters to remove face masks. But the problem is that there is nothing to stop people just putting them back on again.
1.23pm: More from the courts, and Riazat Butt has this from Solihull magistrates’ court in the West Midlands, where 20 people have been jailed following an all-night session to deal with disorder suspects, who included a man who stole £3,500 worth of cigarettes and another who stole £5,000 worth of perfume. Riazat writes:
In total 26 defendants came before the court between 7pm on Wednesday and 6.30am on Thursday charges of arson, theft, violent disorder and burglary .
Ryan Kelly, 20, was jailed for six months after he admitted looting £3,500 worth of cigarettes from a Birmingham newsagent.
Justinder Douglas, 24, admitted stealing almost £5,000 worth of perfume from House of Fraser on Wednesday and was remanded in custody until September, when he will be sentenced at Birmingham crown court.
Six of those in court were juveniles, including a 16-year-old who was remanded into secure accommodation after pleading not guilty to looting rings from a Wolverhampton jeweller.
Other overnight defendants in Solihull were a 21-year-old man who denied stealing £500 worth of trainers from Footlocker, a 23-year-old man alleged to have stolen a Blu-ray DVD player from Richer Sounds and a 44-year-old man on suspicion of carrying CS and pepper sprays. All were remanded in custody.
1.20pm: Back in the chamber, Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, asks if the government will use impact assessments to measure the effect of government policies on inequality.
Cameron says that young people smashing up shops had nothing to do with inequality. He goes on to say that a «hard core» of people are not frightened enough of the criminal justice system. «We need to make sure that they are,» he says.
1.19pm: The Huffington Post website has put up the full text of Ed Miliband’s response to Cameron’s statement.
1.19pm:Chuka Umunna, a Labour MP, says «racialising» the riots would be a mistake. People of all races were involved, he says.
Cameron says he agrees. This was not about race; it was about crime, he says.
Labour’s Pat McFadden asks if Cameron will reconsider his plans to make CCTV harder for communities to use.
Cameron says he wants to make the CCTV use properly regulated. But the government does want CCTV to be available.
Karen Buck of Labour says crisis policing is now substitute for community policing. Safer neighbourhood officers are being cut, she says.
Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative, asks if the police will be allowed to close mobile phone communications in an area, as they did after the 7/7 bombings.
Cameron says that this is one of the issues that will be considered as part of the review he has ordered. (See 12.01pm.)
1.18pm: Back to the debate now, and Labour’s Tom Watson says the police are dealing with a new breed of technology-enabled criminal. Will Cameron reconsider his police cuts, or at least agree to keep the matter under review?
Cameron says that Watson should consider the link between the two parts of his question. New technology can enable the police to work more effectively, he suggests.
1.16pm: Back in the Commons chamber earlier, David Cameron said police were very close do deploying plastic bullets in London. It would have been the first time that baton rounds had been used in the UK, outside Northern Ireland. Our crime correspondent, Sandra Laville, has more details on this.
The moment the came during what senior officers say was the worst urban disorder in living memory.
After rioting and disorder across the capital on Monday night on a scale greater than that scene in the 1980s, acting commissioner Tim Godwin and his senior management team at operations headquarters in Lambeth held tense meetings in the early hours. With Lavender Hill in Clapham Junction looking like a war zone, and a crowd of 150 determined looters confronting a thin line of police, Godwin and his team came very close to issuing the order for firearms teams to use plastic bullets.
At that point the Met’s officers were «stretched to an extent never seen before,» deputy assistant commissioner Steven Kavanagh said. «We did absolutely consider it through the night,» Kavanagh said. «But these were very fast moving mobile groups and by the time we got baton rounds there this groups would have moved away.»
Although the commissioner and his senior officers had at the forefront of their mind the long lasting repercussions to the British tradition of police by consent of using plastic bullets against children as young as 11, it appears that in the end it was for tactical reasons they were not deployed.
«These were very fast moving mobile groups and we considered by the time we got the baton rounds there these groups would have moved on,» said Kavanagh.
Instead the Met opted for armoured vehicles – Jankels – which were brought into Lavender Hill and driven at high speed at the crowds of looters. After hours of a violent stand off the crowd was quickly dispersed. The moment marked a change in police tactics to a tougher approach which appears to have worked.
1.12pm:Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has just put out a press notice announcing that he will spend £50m repairing damaged town centres in the capital. Here’s an extract from his release.
The new £50 million regeneration fund will invest in larger scale proposals and will build on the momentum created as repair and rebuilding work begins and will ensure the affected areas are not only restored. The result will be places that are better than before in to live, work and invest in.
The regeneration proposals will be developed with communities and Councils and we will ensure that contracts awarded for the work go to as many local businesses and employ as many local people as possible. This will also include offering apprenticeships to unemployed people in the affected areas to give them vital skills to move into work.
Over the coming weeks and months the Mayor and his team will be urgently developing proposals to ensure we maximise the impact of this investment so that these areas are improved and opportunities for economic growth are increased.
12.57pm: As the debate continues in Westminster, the courts are continuing to deal with alleged rioters who have been arrested. Jasmine Coleman is at City of Westminster magistrates’ court, and reports District Crown Prosecutor Becky Owens as describing the situation in the cells as «chaos».
Jasmine writes that 16 young people has been charged over violence in St John’s Wood in the early hours of Wednesday, when rioters allegedly targeted a restaurant.
Marouane Rouhi appeared at City of Westminster magistrates court this morning charged with violent disorder over the alleged attack on Les Bijou Lebanese restaurant and a nearby cafe in Lodge Road.
Among the suspected rioters to appear at Westminster magistrates court this morning over this alleged attack was Samir Drissi, 18, a 16-year-wold who did not enter a plea.
In another case, a university graduate, who had been pursuing a career in social work, pleaded guilty to theft during the London riots at this court this morning, after handing herself into police on Wednesday. Natasha Reid, 24, of Rosemary Avenue, Enfield, was in McDonalds on Sunday night when she saw looters ransacking the area and decided to join in.
She stole a television worth £269.99 from Comet. Her defence lawyer said she was racked with guilt and had not sleep since. Reid admitted theft and entering with intent to steal and was bailed to return for sentencing on September 1.
12.55pm: Labour’s Chris Leslie asks Cameron to reconsider the police budget cuts, and other public service cuts.
Cameron says that it has taken him an hour and 20 minutes, but that he is now going to address the question as to why the cuts are necessary.
There is a reason we are having to reduce these budgets. That is because we inherited a complete fiscal car crash. There is a connection between this statement and the statement we are about to have [from chancellor George Osborne, on the debt crisis].
12.53pm: In response to another question, Cameron makes it clear that, in his comments about the police, he is not blaming individuals officers. They behaved very bravely, he says. The point he is making is that police tactics failed.
12.52pm:Graham Stringer, a Labour MP, says Cameron was right to say the police tactics originally failed. Many of his constituents were horrified that the police did not intervene when they saw people looting. (Other MPs, including former Home Office minister Hazel Blears, made a similar point earlier.)
Cameron says the police have to learn lessons from the mistakes that were made at the start.
12.49pm:Peter Lilley, a Conservative who was social security secretary in the 1990s, says every police officer to whom he has says they could dramatically increase the amount of time spent on frontline duty if they organised themselves more efficiently.
Cameron says he agreed. He says he went through the police budget in his constituency with a senior office «line by line» to asssure himself that this was possible.
12.45pm:Margot James, a Conservative, urges Cameron to resist «knee-jerk calls» for a rethink on police budgets.
Cameron says he agrees. It is «not a big day for politics», he says (he means that it’s not a day for partisan politics). But both parties went into the election planning police cuts, he says.
12.43pm: Back in the Commons, Conor Burns, a Conservative, asks Cameron to scrap the Human Rights Act.
Cameron says that he talked about human rights concerns because, over the last few days, people have questioned whether the police are able to publish photographs of riot suspects. He wanted to assure them that they could. As for the HRA, Cameron says that the government has plans to reform it.
12.40pm: Having heard Sir Peter Tapsell’s comment about Wembley stadium (see 12.17pm), my colleague Sam Jones points out that another stadium precedent is Chile, in September 1973, where Pinochet’s troops rounded up tens of thousands of people in the national stadium before torturing and killing them.
12.37pm:Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney north and Stoke Newington, urges Cameron not to involve the army. The further militarisation of the situation will not help, he says.
Cameron says government has a duty to consider all eventualities. The army does help out in some situations of this kind, as it did during the flooding, he says. «We should be thankful for it,» he says.
12.31pm: Back in the chamber, Edward Leigh, a Conservative, asks if Cameron will bring in a tax allowance for marriage.
Cameron says he supports marriage. The government should judge every policy on the basis of whether or not it will encourage responsibility.
12.28pm: The communities department has just sent out a news release with more details of the help that will be available to areas affected by the riots. It’s not available on the web yet, but here are the key measures, as set out by the department in its press notice.
• A £10m recovery fund to help councils with the immediate costs of making their areas safe, clear and clean again. This fund can be used, for example, to clear debris left strewn in streets and make immediate repairs to pavements and roads. This Recovery scheme can also be used to support councils who use their powers to offer council tax discounts or council tax relief to those whose homes have been damaged but are still habitable.
• A £20m High Street Support Scheme – funded jointly by the Departments for Communities and Local Government, and Business Innovation and Skills, which will be made available immediately, for the streets and areas where businesses were affected by the rioting. The money is intended to finance those measures that will get business trading again and meet short term costs. Councils will distribute the money and could use it to reduce business rates, finance building repairs and encourage customers back to the affected areas.
• In addition, seriously damaged homes and business properties will be taken off the respective valuation lists, and [Eric] Pickles has strongly encouraged the Valuation Office Agency and local authorities to do so as promptly as possible. This removes any liability for council tax or business rates.
• Councils have the power to offer rate relief for local firms, but must pay a quarter of the cost; central government automatically pays for three quarters of the cost. The High Street Support Scheme will help reimburse councils for this cost, to facilitate immediate and real financial help to be given to small and medium firms to rebuild their local businesses. Business rates are typically the third biggest outgoing for firms after rent and staff.
• Re-housing funding to meet the immediate costs of emergency accommodation for families who have been made homeless by the disturbances. As these are exceptional circumstances, Mr Pickles has confirmed that his Department would meet these costs under established homelessness funding processes.
12.26pm:Angie Bray, a Conservative, asks if those caught will feel the «full force of the law».
Cameron says people caught up in violent disorder should expect to go to prison.
12.23pm: Cameron said he would encourage people to shop their neighbours if they have mysteriously acquired a new plasma TV screen.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband responds to Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons. Photograph: PA
12.17pm: While I’ve been summarising the main points in the Cameron statement, he has been responding to Miliband and backbenchers. Here are the two keys points that have emerged.
• Cameron has dismissed Miliband’s call for the police budget cuts to be reversed. Cameron said that, even after the spending cuts have gone through, the government will «still be able to surge as many police on the streets as we have in recent days in London, in Wolverhampton and in Manchester».
• He has rejected Miliband’s call for a public inquiry now – without ruling one out for good. Pointing out that the home affairs committee is conducting its own inquiry, Cameron said the parliamentary inquiry should be allowed to run its course first.
He also ruled out locking up thousands of rioters in Wembley stadium. Sir Peter Tapsell said that when thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington to protest about the Vietnam war, they were held en masse in a Washington stadium. Cameron said he would prefer to see Wembley used for sport.
12.01pm: Here are the key points from David Cameron’s statement.
• Instant messaging services will be reviewed. «We are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality,» he said.
• The police will have new powers to order people to remove facemasks. «On facemasks, currently [the police] can only remove these in a specific geographical location and for a limited time,» Cameron said. «So I can announce today that we are going to give the police the discretion to remove face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity.»
• Curfew powers will be reviewed. «On dealing with crowds, we are also looking at the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary,» he said.
• Sentencing powers will be kept under review to ensure that the courts have the powers they need.
• Individuals and companies will get compensation for damage caused by rioting. «On repairing the damages, I can confirm that any individual, homeowner or business that has suffered damage to or loss of their buildings or property as a result of rioting, can seek compensation under the Riot Damages Act, even if uninsured,» he said.
• The police will receive «the funds they need to meet the cost of any legitimate aims».
• The government will set up a £20m fund to help high street firms affected by the rioting. Businesses affected will be able to defer tax payments.
• The government will allow councils to grant business rate relief. Whitehall will fund three quarters of the cost of such schemes.
• Gang injunctions will be extended across the whole of the UK.
• A ministerial group will prepare a programme of action on gang culture. It will report in October. People like Bill Bratton, the American police chief, will be consulted.
12.00pm: The text of Cameron’s statement is now on the Number 10 website.
11.57am: Ed Miliband is still speaking.
He says seeking to explain the riots is not the same as seeking to condone them.
It is important to understand why they happened.
MPs need to listen to the voices of those involved. Can Cameron say how those voices will be heard.
• Miliband calls for an inquiry into the riots. It should be independent, he says.
Miliband says he agrees with Cameron about the need to tackle gang culture.
When politiicians talk about responsibility, they must remember their own responsibility – to the younger generation.
Ours must be one society. We all bear a share of responsibility for what happens within it … We cannot afford to move on and forget.
11.56am: You can watch a live feed of the statement here, on the Guardian website.
11.52am:Ed Miliband is speaking now. He says there can be no excuses for rioting.
Miliband asks what the army could do to help the police.
Can Cameron confirm that the extra costs for the police will be met from Treasury reserves?
Can Cameron say the extra police will remain on the streets after the weekend, until the trouble is over?
Will Cameron think again about the police cuts?
Miliband is now talking about the justice system.
Can Cameron confirm that there is capacity to deal with these cases quickly, not just when people appear for the first time?
David Cameron speaking to the Commons. Photograph: Press Association
11.47am: Cameron is now talking about the causes of the violence.
Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal, he says.
This is not about poverty. It is about culture, he says. There has to be more responsibility.
At the heart of the problem is gang culture.
The government will extend powers to impose injunctions on gangs.
Cameron says that he has asked for an investigation into gangs. It will report in October.
Bill Bratton, the American police chief, will contribute, he says.
Cameron says that Britain will fight back against the troublemakers.
11.44am: Cameron is now talking about the help available to those affected.
Homeowners and businesses will receive compensation for riot damage even if they are not insured under the Riot Act, he says.
The £200m cost to the insurance industry will be underpinned by the government.
The government will also meet the costs of looking after those made homeless, he says.
11.37am: Cameron says the death of Mark Duggan is being investigated by the IPPC.
But this was exploited by opportunistic thugs. It is ridiculous to suggest that there is a link between the death of Duggan and the looting that has spread over England.
Initially there were too few police on the streets, he says. The police made the mistake of treating this as a public order problem, not a crime problem.
He says decisive action has been taken to ensure more robust policing.
The Met increased the number of officers on the streets of London from 6,000 to almost 16,000. This number will remain until the weekend, he says.
Many businesses have released special constables, he says.
Some 1,200 people have been arrested. Photographs will be used to identify the other rioters, and «phony human rights concerns» will not stop their photographs being identified.
The sentencing powers available to the courts are being kept under review.
Nothing is off the table. The police are already authorised to use rubber bullets and water cannon could be deployed at 24 hours’ notice.
On the subject of involving the police, Cameron says Tim Godwin, the acting commissioner of the Met, said he would rather be the last man left in Scotland Yard, with all his management team on the streets, before having to call in the army.
That is the right attitude. But the government will keep this under review.
Cameron says that the government will review what could be done to stop people using instant message services to plan riots.
And the police will be given the power to order people to remove face masks if they suspect they are involved in crime.
(Didn’t Theresa May announce this after the tuition fees protest? I’ll check when I get a chance.)
11.35am: Cameron starts by thanking MPs for returning to parliament and to Ed Miliband for the constructive approach he has taken. He says he has spoken to many of the MPs representing areas where rioting has taken place. In particular, he pays tribute to David Lammy for his powerful words.
Cameron says the nation has witnessed criminality.
We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear on our streets.
The government will do whatever is necessary to restore order, he says.
11.35am:David Cameron is just starting his statement.
11.31am: Banks will help firms affected by the riots, the Press Association reports. Here’s the top of the story it has just filed.
Businesses that suffered vandalism or looting in the riots have been assured that banks will treat them «sympathetically and sensitively».
The British Bankers’ Association (BBA), which represents the UK’s biggest banks, said its members have put in place special measures, including extra financial support to help victims get back on their feet.
There will be short-term loans to help businesses repair the damage and replace stolen or damaged stock, and loan repayment holidays until they receive compensation from insurers.
BBA chief executive Angela Knight said: «These riots are appalling. It seems that the majority of businesses affected are small. We hope that as many as possible will reopen and the banks are putting in place arrangements to help.
«Businesses must contact their insurance company, but at the same time we know that claims take time to process and we stand ready to help.»
11.18am: One consequence of the riots is that the number of people using the government’s new e-petitions website to sign a petition saying rioters should lose their benefits has gone through the roof. A colleague says it has almost hit the 100,000 mark – which is the point at which the Commons will consider making it the subject of a parliamentary debate. I would like to check for myself, but the website keeps crashing.
Grant Shapps, the housing minister, was asked on Sky this morning if he supported the proposal. According to PoliticsHome, he argued that he was doing something similar anyway.
Rather than talking in hypotheticals I can tell you what I’m actually going to do, which is I’ve just launched a consultation last week about tackling neighbours from hell where people have already had a conviction for anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhood. Should that then count against them when it comes to being evicted from their council house?
Something certainly needs to be looked at so I’ve put it into a consultation last week. Today what I’m saying is I’m going to widen the remit of that consultation and ask the question, if somebody moves to somebody else’s neighbourhood and makes their lives a hell through rioting, for example, should that not count against them when it comes to eviction. Clearly I think that it should, and that’s why I’m putting it into the consultation to discuss it.
Shapps also said that around 100 families had been made homeless as a result of the riots.
11.09am: This is Andrew Sparrow, taking over now from Haroon Siddique.
Parliament has been recalled and the politics live blog has been been recalled too. I’ll be blogging for the rest of the day, covering David Cameron’s statement to the Commons at 11.30am and then the debate about the riots which will carry on until 7pm.
Also, with help from colleagues, I’ll be covering any riot-related developments taking place outside Westminster. But I’ll be focusing mainly on the Commons. It’s unusual for parliament to be recalled during a recess – Jim Pickard posted a list of recent recalls on the FT’s Westminster blog earlier this week – and you can tell it’s a big moment because «scaffold city» has gone up at College Green, where the broadcasters set up temporary studios on major parliamentary occasions.
But what are we going to learn today? Here are three things to look out for.
1. What’s the government going to do? Cameron is expected to announce some emergency funding to help meet the costs caused by the riots. But, as the Guardian reports, the most interesting question is whether he will budge on police cuts.
2. Who’s going to win politically? At the moment, it’s hard to call. A YouGov poll released yesterday (pdf) showed that voters think David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson have all handled the riots badly.
Since then, Cameron has probably recovered some ground (particularly because his comments about water cannon and rubber bullets yesterday seem to have impressed rightwingers who are too dim to realise that these measures are never going to be used – for the reasons that Sir Hugh Orde, the ACPO president, explains in a powerful article in the Indie.) Ed Miliband seems to have had a good crisis, but that’s largely because he’s avoided saying anything daft. By the end of today we’ll have a better idea of who’s up and who’s down.
3. Can parliament explain the riots? If you are looking are seeking a sophisticated explanation of a complicated event, a debate in the House of Commons is not normally the first place where you would look. Commons debates can be wretchedly banal. But they can also be extremely illuminating.
As Alastair Campbell said on his blog yesterday, if parliament wants to be taken seriously, «it must be the place that starts a serious debate as to why this has happened, what it says about what Britain has become, and what if any policy and cultural changes need to be advanced.»
11.03am: There have been a lot of references to Blackberry Messenger being used to organise disorder (the company behind Blackberry said it would hand over relevant information to the police) but as far as I can recall this – from Hampshire police – is the first instance of people being arrested specifically in connection with use of the device:
Three people have been arrested on suspicion of using Twitter and Blackberry Messenger to incite violent disorder in Southampton. Two remained in custody overnight and will be interviewed today, a third has been release on bail pending further inquiries. Our intelligence teams continue to monitor and take action against anyone using social media to attempt to cause riot.
As today’s events are largely happening in the political arena, I’m handing over to my colleague Andrew Sparrow now, although I will be feeding into the blog if there are any other major, non-political, developments.
10.50am: The Guardian’s Jeevan Vasagar has this from Manchester:
A woman with 96 previous convictions for theft pleaded guilty to stealing alcohol, cigarettes and mobile phone accessories which had been looted during riots in Manchester.
Linda Boyd, 31, was one of a series of defendants who appeared before Manchester magistrates court, which sat late into the night on Wednesday.
The court heard that she was drunk and had found an orange bin liner filled with the stolen goods in Manchester city centre, and began dragging it away, intending to share it with friends.
Her case was adjourned to 16 August, when she will be sentenced at Manchester crown court. Boyd stalked from the glass-walled dock telling the district judge who presided over the magistrates’ court to: «Go away, shut up.»
10.39am:Jasmine Coleman, at City of Westminster magistrates court, reports that CPS prosecutors have said they have been working work patterns that they have never experienced before, with some having worked two night shifts in a row.
She also has details of one of the cases from this morning:
A university graduate, who had been pursuing a career in social work, pleaded guilty to theft during the London riots, after handing herself into police yesterday.
Natasha Reid, 24, of Rosemary Avenue, Enfield, was in McDonalds on Sunday night when she saw looters ransacking the area and decided to join in. She stole a television worth £269.99 from Comet.
Her defence said she was racked with guilt and had not slept since. Reid admitted theft and entering with intent to steal and was bailed to return for sentencing on 1 September.
Residents watch the smouldering Carpetright building, set alight during Saturday’s riot on Tottenham High Road in London. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
10.09am: @riotcleanup, has posted a list of places where people in London can donate today to help people who have suffered loss as a result of the disorder. The locations are:
Tottenham Green Leisure Centre, 1 Philip Lane, N15 4JA from 9am
Camden Town 11am to 2pm
Outside White Cube gallery/corner of Rufus St/Hoxton Square 11am to 2.30pm
Outside the Majestic Wine Warehouse 63-63A, Chalk Farm Road, Chalk Farm, London, NW1 8AN. (Near the Nandos) 11am to 2pm
Paddington Library 6pm
It is asking for «donations of any kind, from clothes to household goods, new underwear, towels, blankets, baby food, disposable nappies, sanitary towels, toiletries, deoderants, make-up, magazines, entertainment etc».
@riotcleanup is also holding a meeting with the GLA to discuss ways forward on the clean up.
The UK riot clean up page, set up by the Guardian’s communities team, also has details of where people can donate or seek help if they have been affected. And a blog – Keep Aaron cutting – has been set up for people to help restore a barber shop featured in the Guardian’s Tottenham riots damage photogallery.
9.55am: We have reporters at a number of courts today, as those arrested come before the authorities. Jasmine Coleman is at City of Westminster magistrates which has been sitting overnight. She says that about 100 preliminary cases have been heard in the past 12 hours or so and the court expects to process further 30 defendants today. Among them are some members of a 16-strong gang standing together over the rioting in London.
9.53am: Nottinghamshire police say an 11-year-old girl has been charged with criminal damage and attempted criminal damage and has been remanded in custody.
Three people have been charged with posting messages on Facebook encouraging disorder – one in Sussex and two in Lancashire.
Sussex police said Nathan Sinden, 27, who was arrested yesterday has been charged with «intentionally encouraging/assisting the commission of an either way offence, namely burglary and criminal damage».
Sinden, from St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, will appear at Hastings magistrates court today.
Christopher Schofield, 25, from, Nelson, and Warren Calvert, 19, from Heysham, have been charged with intentionally encouraging or assisting in the commission of an either way offence, believing it would be committed, Lancashire police said.
A spokeswoman for Lancashire constabulary said Schofield was bailed to appear before Burnley magistrates’ court on Monday and Calvert is due at Lancaster magistrates’ court on August 25.
Haroon Jahan, Shezad Ali and Abdul Musavir who were killed in Winson Green, Birmingham Photograph: Reuters
9.30am: West Midlands police say they have been given more time to question a 32-year-old man on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of three men – Haroon Jahan, 21, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30 and Abdul Musavir, 31 – who were victims of an alleged hit-and-run in Birmingham in the early hours of Wednesday.
9.18am: People are starting to emerge from the emergency Cobra meeting, chaired by David Cameron. Outside the meeting, the Acpo president, Hugh Orde, said there had been a return to a semblance of normality but there was no complacency. He also said he expected «hundreds» more arrests.
Photograph: Arj Singh/PA
9.14am: The Metropolitan deputy assistant police commissioner, Stephen Kavanagh told BBC Breakfast more than 100 arrest warrants are being executed this morning (a raid on an estate in Pimlico has already been reported). He said there would be 16,000 officers on the streets again tonight and the situation will then be reviewed.
Kavanagh also said some of his officers were «disappointed» with the punishments handed out to rioters and looters by the courts.
That has been personally raised by me and others, and the commissioner I know has also raised it, so we will move through those issues and I am confident we will get the support of the courts.
9.02am: An estate in Pimlico has been raided by police in connection with the riots, according to Sky News’s Emma Birchley. She has tweeted:
55 met police officers carry out four co-ordinated raids on flats in pimlico’s Churchill estate related to #londonriots.
Hugo boss clothes recovered with labels in and trainers in boxes believed to have been stolen during looting in #londonriots.
Two arrested so far in Churchill gardens estate. Cash also recovered. Part of wider raids across London.
Eyewitness Oliver Munson tweeted:
Just seen at least 50 riot police raid the Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico. Doors being busted down, thieves rounded up. Good to see.
8.40am: This is Haroon Siddique taking over from Matt Wells. You can email me at haroon.siddique@guardian.co.uk or contact me on Twitter @Haroon_Siddique.
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
After his interview with Radio 5 Live, Nick Clegg moved into the Radio 4 Today programme studio. He reiterated his claim that the cuts to the police force would not undermine their ability to control similar incidents in the future. He presented a number of arguments, including that the cuts to frontline police numbers will not be what people are saying they will be and that officers could also be drafted in from other areas to help when there is a particular flashpoint, as they have been in the past few days.
The deputy prime minister was asked whether he agreed with his pre-election comments that that if a society becomes too greedy, it causes «these problems».
Clegg said he stood by those comments but added:
None of that can be an excuse under any circumstances for people going out and trashing their own communities.
He went on to say:
We need to ask ourselves that why it is, why, when they had the opportunity, a number of people took that [and] their first priority was to go out and smash a shop window.
But Clegg rejected the idea that the disorder should give the government pause for thought on its cuts programme.
Nothing is going to be fixed by shrugging our shoulders and saying that all of the [debt] problems we’ve got now, we’re going to heap on the shoulders of the next generation.
8.01am: Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, is being interviewed on Radio 5 Live now. He’s being pressed on the planned police cuts. In a piece of logic that I somehow doubt will be accepted by his critics, he says the savings will allow police to put more officers on the street.
I think it is ridiculous to try and draw a link between out-and-out criminality and savings we are asking police forces to make as if somewhow there’s a link between people smashing windows and savings the police forces have to make which will be entirely manageable and will allow police forces to dramatically increase officers on the street.
7.48am: As the riots die down, the commentators have been having their say. Here is a selection:
In the Daily Telegraph, Allison Pearson asks how we ended up «with some of the most indisciplined and frighteningly moronic youngsters in Europe». In a thoughtful piece, she says parents must take responsibility:
What our young people need is adults to stop abdicating authority. They need police to police, teachers to teach, parents to parent, politicians and clergy to give moral leadership, and, above all, they need more people like Pauline Pearce, the jazz-singing Jamaican grandmother who fearlessly took on rioters and saved a white man from the mob.
In the Guardian, Zoe Williamswarns against the «Blitz spirit» turning into vigilantism.
Big society might look like people on the streets with brooms or doner knives; but that’s not what functional society looks like.
The New York Times carries a piece by London-based sociologists Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen. Under the headline «Cameron’s Broken Windows», they draw parallels between government cuts here and calls to slash the state.
Britain’s current crisis should cause us to reflect on the fact that a smaller government can actually increase communal fear and diminish our quality of life. Is that a fate America wishes upon itself?
And finally in the Daily Mail, Melanie Phillips (not predictably at all) blames the riots on the «liberal intelligentsia»
So now the chickens have well and truly come home terrifyingly to roost. The violent anarchy that has taken hold of British cities is the all-too-predictable outcome of a three-decade liberal experiment which tore up virtually every basic social value.
7.31am: The focus today will switch to parliament, which has been recalled for a special one-day session to discuss the unrest. The prime minister, David Cameron, will make a statement in which he is expected to spell out further plans to deal with the disorder and compensate riot-damaged businesses. Political leaders have been attacked for being impotent in the face of the riots. There will be intense pressure on politicians to come up with answers about how both to regain control of the streets in the short term, and what to do about the causes and longer-term repercussions.
There will also doubtless be pressure over planned cuts to the police force. Our political editor, Patrick Wintour, reports today that Cameron is facing growing cabinet pressure to rethink the policing cuts.
A senior government source said the Home Office would be advised to take a fresh look at its plans to cut £2bn from police funding over the next few years. «The optics have changed,» the source told the Guardian.
We’ll have full coverage of the statement and debate with our senior political correspondent, Andrew Sparrow, who will be live blogging from Westminster.
7.22am: West Midlands police have issued an update about the situation in Birmingham.
It said that officers have been arresting people linked to disorder in the area earlier in the week. Solihull Magistrates Court opened throughout the night to deal with some of those already in custody. Five have been jailed.
7.18am: The magistrates’ court in Manchester has been sitting overnight to deal with 117 people in custody in the city. Early indications are that tough sentences are being handed down from the bench.
Owen Flanagan, 28, Levenshulme, was jailed for eight months after he pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary – stealing £75 of clothing from former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green fashion boutique and two electrical items.
Bernard Moore, 46, of Monsall, pleaded guilty to using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause alarm or distress and assaulting a constable in the execution of their duty.
Moore, who was said to have been clearly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, shouted abuse at officers trying to deal with disorder. He then attempted to gouge out the officer’s eye with his finger. He was jailed for 20 weeks.
7.13am: Police believe they now know the identity of the man who suffered life-threatening injuries when he tried to stop teenage rioters during disorder in Ealing, west London on Monday.
Detectives investigating the attack on the man have also released CCTV footage of a suspect and a potential witness.
You can read the full story here.
7.09am: Scotland Yard has said that 888 people had now been arrested in connection with violence, disorder and looting in London, with 371 charged.
7.03am: The Malaysian student who was mugged in Barking, east London, by young men who appeared to be going to his aid, has been speaking about his ordeal.
Ashraf Haziq, 20, told one of his friends who visited him in the Royal London hospital in east London, that they threatened to stab him.
His friend recorded their conversation in hospital and posted it on YouTube. Channel 4 News has translated the footage. Haziq said: «Some of them were quite young, maybe still in primary school. They had their hoods on and demanded my bicycle.»
6.45am: Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the aftermath of riots across England where there calm appears to have descended.
Here’s a round-up of the main overnight developments:
• There was no repeat of the mass disorder seen previously in London and other major cities, including Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester. There were a few minor skirmishes and a number of arrests but overall the situation across England was much calmer.
• Police have been deployed in force in major cities across England. There were 6,000 police officers deployed in Birmingham.. At a vigil in the city for three men who were killed in an alleged hit-and-run incident on Tuesday, the father of one of the victims appealed for calm.
• In London there were some clashes between police and EDL supporters in Eltham. Police made a number of arrests.
• Special court hearings have been held into the night in cities affected by the rioting. Hundreds of people have now appeared in court.
2.54pm:
• David Cameron has used a marathon statement in the Commons to announce a series of measures intended to show that the rioting crisis is over and that order has been restored. There were at least 10 separate announcements in the list (see 12.01pm) — some of which were relatively minor, or very provisional — but collectively they amounted to a reasonably weighty package which should convey the impression that, after a period when it looked weak, the government is now firmly back in control. The measures include a £20m high street support scheme that will help businesses affected by the rioting.
Boris Johnson, the London mayor, has also announced Cameron spend almost two-and-a half hours answering questions about the phone hacking affair in July and today he was on his feet even longer. (In fact, his statement went on for 2 hours and 45 minutes, breaking the 2hr 31m that George Osborne managed when he announced the comprehensive spending review). This may well be a record. After the phone hacking statement, Cameron told a journalist that going on for so long allowed MPs to «let off steam» and today’s statement seemed to have the same effect. At the end of his statement, Cameron insisted that the the government was staging a «fightback» on behalf of the law-abiding majority.
This is a time for our country to pull together.
To the law abiding people who play by the rules, and who are the overwhelming majority in this country, I say the fightback has begun, we will protect you, if you’ve had your livelihood and property damaged, we will compensate you. We are on your side.
And to the lawless minority, the criminals who’ve taken what they can get. I say: We will track you down, we will find you, we will charge you, we will punish you. You will pay for what you have done.
We need to show the world, which has looked on appalled, that the perpetrators of the violence we have seen on our streets are not in any way representative of our country – nor of our young people.
We need to show them that we will address our broken society and restore a sense of stronger sense of morality and responsibility – in every town, in every street and in every estate.
And a year away from the Olympics, we need to show them the Britain that doesn’t destroy, but that builds; that doesn’t give up but stands up; that doesn’t look back, but always forwards.»
• Cameron has admitted that the initial police response to the rioting was flawed. In what are probably the most critical comments he has made about the policing operation he has made, he said that they did not put enough officers on the street and did not recognise what they were dealing with.
What became increasingly clear earlier this week was that there were simply far too few police were deployed onto the streets. And the tactics they were using weren’t working.
Police chiefs have been frank with me about why this happened.
Initially the police treated the situation too much as a public order issue – rather than essentially one of crime.
The truth is they have been facing a new sort of challenge, with different people doing the same thing – basically looting – in different places all at the same time.»
• Cameron has rejected Ed Miliiband’s call for an immediate independent inquiry into the riots. But the prime minister did not rule one out entirely, saying that he wanted to let the Commons home affairs committee conduct its inquiry first. After that he would «take it from there», Cameron said. In his response to Cameron, Miliband said it was important to have an independent inquiry, not one «sitting in Whitehall hearing evidence from academic experts», but one «reaching out to those affected by these terrible events».
• Cameron also rejected Labour calls for him to shelve the government’s police cuts. Miliband and many other Labour MPs said that, in the light of the riots, it would be wrong to cut police budgets. But Cameron said he did not want the debate to become one about resources. «When you have deep moral failures you don’t hit them with a wall of money,» he said. He also insisted that it was possible to cut police budgets without affecting the number of officers available for frontline duty. «I can make this very clear pledge: at the end of this process of making sure our police budgets are affordable, we will still be able to surge as many police on to the streets as we have in recent days in London, in Wolverhampton, in Manchester,» he said. At any one time only 12% of officers are on the beat, he said. Labour were being «completely intellectually idle» because they refused to accept the possibility of reform, he said.
• The police have also said that 922 people have now been arrested in connection with the rioting in London, and 401 of them have been charged. Courts in London and other parts of the country are staying open 24 hours a day to process offenders.
2.23pm: Cameron has now finished. He spoke for two hours and 45 minutes, taking questions from 160 MPs. George Osborne, the chancellor, is speaking now. You can follow his statement on our business blog. I’ll post a summary of Cameron’s statement, and all the other rioting developments, shortly.
2.18pm: An 11-year-old girl charged with criminal damage following disturbances in Nottingham, one of the youngest people charged in connection with the riots, has been given a nine-month referral order by magistrates.
Randeep Ramesh reports that the girl, who cannot be named for legal reasons, admitting smashing the window of a clothes shop in the city centre and throwing stones. She
received a nine month referral order, which is a non-custodial penalty to be decided by a young offenders panel.
The judge, Maurice Cooper, said the sentence of nine months was «longer than normally given for breaking windows» but reflected the seriousness of other events that occured in the city that night.
The girl, who was about to begin secondary school next term, had been in McDonalds that evening when a gorp of 30 or 40 boys walked past on Tuesday evening. She decided to join them saying in court that «evryone was egging me on».
In court her father said his daughter was «easily led on». He had urged her to apologise in court and her solicitor said that she wanted to plead guilty to acknowlegde wrong doing. She had previously been cautioned for criminal damage last year.
2.11pm: Our video team have put together this recording of David Cameron’s statement.
Cameron has now been on his feet from more than two and a half hours. That breaks the recent record for a parliamentary statement in recent times that was set by George Osborne, the chancellor, who managed two hours and 31 minutes when he announced the comprehensive spending review. I will try to find out if it’s an all-time record.
2.00pm: Back in the chamber, and Labour’s Chris Bryant says that when Winston Churchill (as a Liberal home secretary) sent troops to deal with rioters in Tonypandy, that made the situation worse. Cameron should not send in the army. But that is why maintaining police numbers is so important.
Cameron says Labour refuses to accept that the police can be reformed. «That is why the country is not listening to you,» he says.
1.57pm: Outside the Commons, a 68-year-old man left critically ill after he was attacked by rioters has been named by police. He is Richard Mannington Bowes, and was set upon as he tried to stamp out a fire during riots in Ealing, west London. He remains in a critical condition in hospital today after suffering serious head injuries on Monday night.
Speaking from the scene of the attack, Detective Chief Inspector John McFarlane said he has been unable to contact the victim’s family and appealed to the assailant to turn himself in. The victim’s identity was established only when locals recognised his description and officers used his keys to enter his house. McFarlane said the investigation could turn into a murder inquiry.
Scotland Yard also released an image of the suspect. He is described as black, in his early 20s, of a big build, wearing a white T-shirt with writing on the front. He was also wearing a dark-coloured jumper over his shoulders. (source: Press Association)
1.48pm: Natascha Engel, the Labour MP who chairs the backbench business committee, asks how Cameron will assure people who use the government’s e-petitions website to demand tough punishments for rioters that their petition will make a difference. (See 11.18am.)
Cameron says that the initiative is designed to ensure that parliament has to debate ideas proposed by the public.
1.42pm: Cameron says police authorities have not done a good job at holding chief constables to account.
1.38pm: Labour’s Nick Raynsford asks if Cameron will accept Boris Johnson’s claim that the police cuts should be abandoned.
Cameron says that at any one time only 12% of officers on the beat. Cameron says he refuses to accept that the police cannot be organised more effectively. Labour are being «completely intellectually idle», he says.
1.38pm:Mark Reckless, a Conservative, asks if Cameron will consider transferring powers over sentences from the sentencing council to parliament.
Cameron says he would like to give parliament more opportunities to scrutinise the sentencing council’s decision.
1.31pm: Labour’s Kevin Barron suggests that removing people from social housing, and putting them somewhere else – an idea being explored by Grant Shapps, the housing minister (see 11.18am) – will not help.
Cameron says he does not accept that.
1.30pm: Earlier I said that I thought David Cameron’s announcement about giving the police new powers to order people to remove face masks was old. (See 11.37am.) That’s not quite true. Theresa May did mention this in her statement to the Commons in March, after the violence on the day of the TUC anti-cuts demo, but she only floated the idea of giving the police new powers. Cameron said today the police definitely would get new powers.
A masked rioter is seen in front of a burning car in Hackney Photograph: Kerim Okten/EPA
The police already have the power under the the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order Act to order protesters to remove face masks. But the problem is that there is nothing to stop people just putting them back on again.
1.23pm: More from the courts, and Riazat Butt has this from Solihull magistrates’ court in the West Midlands, where 20 people have been jailed following an all-night session to deal with disorder suspects, who included a man who stole £3,500 worth of cigarettes and another who stole £5,000 worth of perfume. Riazat writes:
In total 26 defendants came before the court between 7pm on Wednesday and 6.30am on Thursday charges of arson, theft, violent disorder and burglary .
Ryan Kelly, 20, was jailed for six months after he admitted looting £3,500 worth of cigarettes from a Birmingham newsagent.
Justinder Douglas, 24, admitted stealing almost £5,000 worth of perfume from House of Fraser on Wednesday and was remanded in custody until September, when he will be sentenced at Birmingham crown court.
Six of those in court were juveniles, including a 16-year-old who was remanded into secure accommodation after pleading not guilty to looting rings from a Wolverhampton jeweller.
Other overnight defendants in Solihull were a 21-year-old man who denied stealing £500 worth of trainers from Footlocker, a 23-year-old man alleged to have stolen a Blu-ray DVD player from Richer Sounds and a 44-year-old man on suspicion of carrying CS and pepper sprays. All were remanded in custody.
1.20pm: Back in the chamber, Caroline Lucas, the leader of the Green party, asks if the government will use impact assessments to measure the effect of government policies on inequality.
Cameron says that young people smashing up shops had nothing to do with inequality. He goes on to say that a «hard core» of people are not frightened enough of the criminal justice system. «We need to make sure that they are,» he says.
1.19pm: The Huffington Post website has put up the full text of Ed Miliband’s response to Cameron’s statement.
1.19pm:Chuka Umunna, a Labour MP, says «racialising» the riots would be a mistake. People of all races were involved, he says.
Cameron says he agrees. This was not about race; it was about crime, he says.
Labour’s Pat McFadden asks if Cameron will reconsider his plans to make CCTV harder for communities to use.
Cameron says he wants to make the CCTV use properly regulated. But the government does want CCTV to be available.
Karen Buck of Labour says crisis policing is now substitute for community policing. Safer neighbourhood officers are being cut, she says.
Tobias Ellwood, a Conservative, asks if the police will be allowed to close mobile phone communications in an area, as they did after the 7/7 bombings.
Cameron says that this is one of the issues that will be considered as part of the review he has ordered. (See 12.01pm.)
1.18pm: Back to the debate now, and Labour’s Tom Watson says the police are dealing with a new breed of technology-enabled criminal. Will Cameron reconsider his police cuts, or at least agree to keep the matter under review?
Cameron says that Watson should consider the link between the two parts of his question. New technology can enable the police to work more effectively, he suggests.
1.16pm: Back in the Commons chamber earlier, David Cameron said police were very close do deploying plastic bullets in London. It would have been the first time that baton rounds had been used in the UK, outside Northern Ireland. Our crime correspondent, Sandra Laville, has more details on this.
The moment the came during what senior officers say was the worst urban disorder in living memory.
After rioting and disorder across the capital on Monday night on a scale greater than that scene in the 1980s, acting commissioner Tim Godwin and his senior management team at operations headquarters in Lambeth held tense meetings in the early hours. With Lavender Hill in Clapham Junction looking like a war zone, and a crowd of 150 determined looters confronting a thin line of police, Godwin and his team came very close to issuing the order for firearms teams to use plastic bullets.
At that point the Met’s officers were «stretched to an extent never seen before,» deputy assistant commissioner Steven Kavanagh said. «We did absolutely consider it through the night,» Kavanagh said. «But these were very fast moving mobile groups and by the time we got baton rounds there this groups would have moved away.»
Although the commissioner and his senior officers had at the forefront of their mind the long lasting repercussions to the British tradition of police by consent of using plastic bullets against children as young as 11, it appears that in the end it was for tactical reasons they were not deployed.
«These were very fast moving mobile groups and we considered by the time we got the baton rounds there these groups would have moved on,» said Kavanagh.
Instead the Met opted for armoured vehicles – Jankels – which were brought into Lavender Hill and driven at high speed at the crowds of looters. After hours of a violent stand off the crowd was quickly dispersed. The moment marked a change in police tactics to a tougher approach which appears to have worked.
1.12pm:Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, has just put out a press notice announcing that he will spend £50m repairing damaged town centres in the capital. Here’s an extract from his release.
The new £50 million regeneration fund will invest in larger scale proposals and will build on the momentum created as repair and rebuilding work begins and will ensure the affected areas are not only restored. The result will be places that are better than before in to live, work and invest in.
The regeneration proposals will be developed with communities and Councils and we will ensure that contracts awarded for the work go to as many local businesses and employ as many local people as possible. This will also include offering apprenticeships to unemployed people in the affected areas to give them vital skills to move into work.
Over the coming weeks and months the Mayor and his team will be urgently developing proposals to ensure we maximise the impact of this investment so that these areas are improved and opportunities for economic growth are increased.
12.57pm: As the debate continues in Westminster, the courts are continuing to deal with alleged rioters who have been arrested. Jasmine Coleman is at City of Westminster magistrates’ court, and reports District Crown Prosecutor Becky Owens as describing the situation in the cells as «chaos».
Jasmine writes that 16 young people has been charged over violence in St John’s Wood in the early hours of Wednesday, when rioters allegedly targeted a restaurant.
Marouane Rouhi appeared at City of Westminster magistrates court this morning charged with violent disorder over the alleged attack on Les Bijou Lebanese restaurant and a nearby cafe in Lodge Road.
Among the suspected rioters to appear at Westminster magistrates court this morning over this alleged attack was Samir Drissi, 18, a 16-year-wold who did not enter a plea.
In another case, a university graduate, who had been pursuing a career in social work, pleaded guilty to theft during the London riots at this court this morning, after handing herself into police on Wednesday. Natasha Reid, 24, of Rosemary Avenue, Enfield, was in McDonalds on Sunday night when she saw looters ransacking the area and decided to join in.
She stole a television worth £269.99 from Comet. Her defence lawyer said she was racked with guilt and had not sleep since. Reid admitted theft and entering with intent to steal and was bailed to return for sentencing on September 1.
12.55pm: Labour’s Chris Leslie asks Cameron to reconsider the police budget cuts, and other public service cuts.
Cameron says that it has taken him an hour and 20 minutes, but that he is now going to address the question as to why the cuts are necessary.
There is a reason we are having to reduce these budgets. That is because we inherited a complete fiscal car crash. There is a connection between this statement and the statement we are about to have [from chancellor George Osborne, on the debt crisis].
12.53pm: In response to another question, Cameron makes it clear that, in his comments about the police, he is not blaming individuals officers. They behaved very bravely, he says. The point he is making is that police tactics failed.
12.52pm:Graham Stringer, a Labour MP, says Cameron was right to say the police tactics originally failed. Many of his constituents were horrified that the police did not intervene when they saw people looting. (Other MPs, including former Home Office minister Hazel Blears, made a similar point earlier.)
Cameron says the police have to learn lessons from the mistakes that were made at the start.
12.49pm:Peter Lilley, a Conservative who was social security secretary in the 1990s, says every police officer to whom he has says they could dramatically increase the amount of time spent on frontline duty if they organised themselves more efficiently.
Cameron says he agreed. He says he went through the police budget in his constituency with a senior office «line by line» to asssure himself that this was possible.
12.45pm:Margot James, a Conservative, urges Cameron to resist «knee-jerk calls» for a rethink on police budgets.
Cameron says he agrees. It is «not a big day for politics», he says (he means that it’s not a day for partisan politics). But both parties went into the election planning police cuts, he says.
12.43pm: Back in the Commons, Conor Burns, a Conservative, asks Cameron to scrap the Human Rights Act.
Cameron says that he talked about human rights concerns because, over the last few days, people have questioned whether the police are able to publish photographs of riot suspects. He wanted to assure them that they could. As for the HRA, Cameron says that the government has plans to reform it.
12.40pm: Having heard Sir Peter Tapsell’s comment about Wembley stadium (see 12.17pm), my colleague Sam Jones points out that another stadium precedent is Chile, in September 1973, where Pinochet’s troops rounded up tens of thousands of people in the national stadium before torturing and killing them.
12.37pm:Diane Abbott, the Labour MP for Hackney north and Stoke Newington, urges Cameron not to involve the army. The further militarisation of the situation will not help, he says.
Cameron says government has a duty to consider all eventualities. The army does help out in some situations of this kind, as it did during the flooding, he says. «We should be thankful for it,» he says.
12.31pm: Back in the chamber, Edward Leigh, a Conservative, asks if Cameron will bring in a tax allowance for marriage.
Cameron says he supports marriage. The government should judge every policy on the basis of whether or not it will encourage responsibility.
12.28pm: The communities department has just sent out a news release with more details of the help that will be available to areas affected by the riots. It’s not available on the web yet, but here are the key measures, as set out by the department in its press notice.
• A £10m recovery fund to help councils with the immediate costs of making their areas safe, clear and clean again. This fund can be used, for example, to clear debris left strewn in streets and make immediate repairs to pavements and roads. This Recovery scheme can also be used to support councils who use their powers to offer council tax discounts or council tax relief to those whose homes have been damaged but are still habitable.
• A £20m High Street Support Scheme – funded jointly by the Departments for Communities and Local Government, and Business Innovation and Skills, which will be made available immediately, for the streets and areas where businesses were affected by the rioting. The money is intended to finance those measures that will get business trading again and meet short term costs. Councils will distribute the money and could use it to reduce business rates, finance building repairs and encourage customers back to the affected areas.
• In addition, seriously damaged homes and business properties will be taken off the respective valuation lists, and [Eric] Pickles has strongly encouraged the Valuation Office Agency and local authorities to do so as promptly as possible. This removes any liability for council tax or business rates.
• Councils have the power to offer rate relief for local firms, but must pay a quarter of the cost; central government automatically pays for three quarters of the cost. The High Street Support Scheme will help reimburse councils for this cost, to facilitate immediate and real financial help to be given to small and medium firms to rebuild their local businesses. Business rates are typically the third biggest outgoing for firms after rent and staff.
• Re-housing funding to meet the immediate costs of emergency accommodation for families who have been made homeless by the disturbances. As these are exceptional circumstances, Mr Pickles has confirmed that his Department would meet these costs under established homelessness funding processes.
12.26pm:Angie Bray, a Conservative, asks if those caught will feel the «full force of the law».
Cameron says people caught up in violent disorder should expect to go to prison.
12.23pm: Cameron said he would encourage people to shop their neighbours if they have mysteriously acquired a new plasma TV screen.
Labour Party leader Ed Miliband responds to Prime Minister David Cameron’s statement to the House of Commons. Photograph: PA
12.17pm: While I’ve been summarising the main points in the Cameron statement, he has been responding to Miliband and backbenchers. Here are the two keys points that have emerged.
• Cameron has dismissed Miliband’s call for the police budget cuts to be reversed. Cameron said that, even after the spending cuts have gone through, the government will «still be able to surge as many police on the streets as we have in recent days in London, in Wolverhampton and in Manchester».
• He has rejected Miliband’s call for a public inquiry now – without ruling one out for good. Pointing out that the home affairs committee is conducting its own inquiry, Cameron said the parliamentary inquiry should be allowed to run its course first.
He also ruled out locking up thousands of rioters in Wembley stadium. Sir Peter Tapsell said that when thousands of demonstrators descended on Washington to protest about the Vietnam war, they were held en masse in a Washington stadium. Cameron said he would prefer to see Wembley used for sport.
12.01pm: Here are the key points from David Cameron’s statement.
• Instant messaging services will be reviewed. «We are working with the Police, the intelligence services and industry to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality,» he said.
• The police will have new powers to order people to remove facemasks. «On facemasks, currently [the police] can only remove these in a specific geographical location and for a limited time,» Cameron said. «So I can announce today that we are going to give the police the discretion to remove face coverings under any circumstances where there is reasonable suspicion that they are related to criminal activity.»
• Curfew powers will be reviewed. «On dealing with crowds, we are also looking at the use of existing dispersal powers and whether any wider power of curfew is necessary,» he said.
• Sentencing powers will be kept under review to ensure that the courts have the powers they need.
• Individuals and companies will get compensation for damage caused by rioting. «On repairing the damages, I can confirm that any individual, homeowner or business that has suffered damage to or loss of their buildings or property as a result of rioting, can seek compensation under the Riot Damages Act, even if uninsured,» he said.
• The police will receive «the funds they need to meet the cost of any legitimate aims».
• The government will set up a £20m fund to help high street firms affected by the rioting. Businesses affected will be able to defer tax payments.
• The government will allow councils to grant business rate relief. Whitehall will fund three quarters of the cost of such schemes.
• Gang injunctions will be extended across the whole of the UK.
• A ministerial group will prepare a programme of action on gang culture. It will report in October. People like Bill Bratton, the American police chief, will be consulted.
12.00pm: The text of Cameron’s statement is now on the Number 10 website.
11.57am: Ed Miliband is still speaking.
He says seeking to explain the riots is not the same as seeking to condone them.
It is important to understand why they happened.
MPs need to listen to the voices of those involved. Can Cameron say how those voices will be heard.
• Miliband calls for an inquiry into the riots. It should be independent, he says.
Miliband says he agrees with Cameron about the need to tackle gang culture.
When politiicians talk about responsibility, they must remember their own responsibility – to the younger generation.
Ours must be one society. We all bear a share of responsibility for what happens within it … We cannot afford to move on and forget.
11.56am: You can watch a live feed of the statement here, on the Guardian website.
11.52am:Ed Miliband is speaking now. He says there can be no excuses for rioting.
Miliband asks what the army could do to help the police.
Can Cameron confirm that the extra costs for the police will be met from Treasury reserves?
Can Cameron say the extra police will remain on the streets after the weekend, until the trouble is over?
Will Cameron think again about the police cuts?
Miliband is now talking about the justice system.
Can Cameron confirm that there is capacity to deal with these cases quickly, not just when people appear for the first time?
David Cameron speaking to the Commons. Photograph: Press Association
11.47am: Cameron is now talking about the causes of the violence.
Responsibility for crime always lies with the criminal, he says.
This is not about poverty. It is about culture, he says. There has to be more responsibility.
At the heart of the problem is gang culture.
The government will extend powers to impose injunctions on gangs.
Cameron says that he has asked for an investigation into gangs. It will report in October.
Bill Bratton, the American police chief, will contribute, he says.
Cameron says that Britain will fight back against the troublemakers.
11.44am: Cameron is now talking about the help available to those affected.
Homeowners and businesses will receive compensation for riot damage even if they are not insured under the Riot Act, he says.
The £200m cost to the insurance industry will be underpinned by the government.
The government will also meet the costs of looking after those made homeless, he says.
11.37am: Cameron says the death of Mark Duggan is being investigated by the IPPC.
But this was exploited by opportunistic thugs. It is ridiculous to suggest that there is a link between the death of Duggan and the looting that has spread over England.
Initially there were too few police on the streets, he says. The police made the mistake of treating this as a public order problem, not a crime problem.
He says decisive action has been taken to ensure more robust policing.
The Met increased the number of officers on the streets of London from 6,000 to almost 16,000. This number will remain until the weekend, he says.
Many businesses have released special constables, he says.
Some 1,200 people have been arrested. Photographs will be used to identify the other rioters, and «phony human rights concerns» will not stop their photographs being identified.
The sentencing powers available to the courts are being kept under review.
Nothing is off the table. The police are already authorised to use rubber bullets and water cannon could be deployed at 24 hours’ notice.
On the subject of involving the police, Cameron says Tim Godwin, the acting commissioner of the Met, said he would rather be the last man left in Scotland Yard, with all his management team on the streets, before having to call in the army.
That is the right attitude. But the government will keep this under review.
Cameron says that the government will review what could be done to stop people using instant message services to plan riots.
And the police will be given the power to order people to remove face masks if they suspect they are involved in crime.
(Didn’t Theresa May announce this after the tuition fees protest? I’ll check when I get a chance.)
11.35am: Cameron starts by thanking MPs for returning to parliament and to Ed Miliband for the constructive approach he has taken. He says he has spoken to many of the MPs representing areas where rioting has taken place. In particular, he pays tribute to David Lammy for his powerful words.
Cameron says the nation has witnessed criminality.
We will not put up with this in our country. We will not allow a culture of fear on our streets.
The government will do whatever is necessary to restore order, he says.
11.35am:David Cameron is just starting his statement.
11.31am: Banks will help firms affected by the riots, the Press Association reports. Here’s the top of the story it has just filed.
Businesses that suffered vandalism or looting in the riots have been assured that banks will treat them «sympathetically and sensitively».
The British Bankers’ Association (BBA), which represents the UK’s biggest banks, said its members have put in place special measures, including extra financial support to help victims get back on their feet.
There will be short-term loans to help businesses repair the damage and replace stolen or damaged stock, and loan repayment holidays until they receive compensation from insurers.
BBA chief executive Angela Knight said: «These riots are appalling. It seems that the majority of businesses affected are small. We hope that as many as possible will reopen and the banks are putting in place arrangements to help.
«Businesses must contact their insurance company, but at the same time we know that claims take time to process and we stand ready to help.»
11.18am: One consequence of the riots is that the number of people using the government’s new e-petitions website to sign a petition saying rioters should lose their benefits has gone through the roof. A colleague says it has almost hit the 100,000 mark – which is the point at which the Commons will consider making it the subject of a parliamentary debate. I would like to check for myself, but the website keeps crashing.
Grant Shapps, the housing minister, was asked on Sky this morning if he supported the proposal. According to PoliticsHome, he argued that he was doing something similar anyway.
Rather than talking in hypotheticals I can tell you what I’m actually going to do, which is I’ve just launched a consultation last week about tackling neighbours from hell where people have already had a conviction for anti-social behaviour in their neighbourhood. Should that then count against them when it comes to being evicted from their council house?
Something certainly needs to be looked at so I’ve put it into a consultation last week. Today what I’m saying is I’m going to widen the remit of that consultation and ask the question, if somebody moves to somebody else’s neighbourhood and makes their lives a hell through rioting, for example, should that not count against them when it comes to eviction. Clearly I think that it should, and that’s why I’m putting it into the consultation to discuss it.
Shapps also said that around 100 families had been made homeless as a result of the riots.
11.09am: This is Andrew Sparrow, taking over now from Haroon Siddique.
Parliament has been recalled and the politics live blog has been been recalled too. I’ll be blogging for the rest of the day, covering David Cameron’s statement to the Commons at 11.30am and then the debate about the riots which will carry on until 7pm.
Also, with help from colleagues, I’ll be covering any riot-related developments taking place outside Westminster. But I’ll be focusing mainly on the Commons. It’s unusual for parliament to be recalled during a recess – Jim Pickard posted a list of recent recalls on the FT’s Westminster blog earlier this week – and you can tell it’s a big moment because «scaffold city» has gone up at College Green, where the broadcasters set up temporary studios on major parliamentary occasions.
But what are we going to learn today? Here are three things to look out for.
1. What’s the government going to do? Cameron is expected to announce some emergency funding to help meet the costs caused by the riots. But, as the Guardian reports, the most interesting question is whether he will budge on police cuts.
2. Who’s going to win politically? At the moment, it’s hard to call. A YouGov poll released yesterday (pdf) showed that voters think David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson have all handled the riots badly.
Since then, Cameron has probably recovered some ground (particularly because his comments about water cannon and rubber bullets yesterday seem to have impressed rightwingers who are too dim to realise that these measures are never going to be used – for the reasons that Sir Hugh Orde, the ACPO president, explains in a powerful article in the Indie.) Ed Miliband seems to have had a good crisis, but that’s largely because he’s avoided saying anything daft. By the end of today we’ll have a better idea of who’s up and who’s down.
3. Can parliament explain the riots? If you are looking are seeking a sophisticated explanation of a complicated event, a debate in the House of Commons is not normally the first place where you would look. Commons debates can be wretchedly banal. But they can also be extremely illuminating.
As Alastair Campbell said on his blog yesterday, if parliament wants to be taken seriously, «it must be the place that starts a serious debate as to why this has happened, what it says about what Britain has become, and what if any policy and cultural changes need to be advanced.»
11.03am: There have been a lot of references to Blackberry Messenger being used to organise disorder (the company behind Blackberry said it would hand over relevant information to the police) but as far as I can recall this – from Hampshire police – is the first instance of people being arrested specifically in connection with use of the device:
Three people have been arrested on suspicion of using Twitter and Blackberry Messenger to incite violent disorder in Southampton. Two remained in custody overnight and will be interviewed today, a third has been release on bail pending further inquiries. Our intelligence teams continue to monitor and take action against anyone using social media to attempt to cause riot.
As today’s events are largely happening in the political arena, I’m handing over to my colleague Andrew Sparrow now, although I will be feeding into the blog if there are any other major, non-political, developments.
10.50am: The Guardian’s Jeevan Vasagar has this from Manchester:
A woman with 96 previous convictions for theft pleaded guilty to stealing alcohol, cigarettes and mobile phone accessories which had been looted during riots in Manchester.
Linda Boyd, 31, was one of a series of defendants who appeared before Manchester magistrates court, which sat late into the night on Wednesday.
The court heard that she was drunk and had found an orange bin liner filled with the stolen goods in Manchester city centre, and began dragging it away, intending to share it with friends.
Her case was adjourned to 16 August, when she will be sentenced at Manchester crown court. Boyd stalked from the glass-walled dock telling the district judge who presided over the magistrates’ court to: «Go away, shut up.»
10.39am:Jasmine Coleman, at City of Westminster magistrates court, reports that CPS prosecutors have said they have been working work patterns that they have never experienced before, with some having worked two night shifts in a row.
She also has details of one of the cases from this morning:
A university graduate, who had been pursuing a career in social work, pleaded guilty to theft during the London riots, after handing herself into police yesterday.
Natasha Reid, 24, of Rosemary Avenue, Enfield, was in McDonalds on Sunday night when she saw looters ransacking the area and decided to join in. She stole a television worth £269.99 from Comet.
Her defence said she was racked with guilt and had not slept since. Reid admitted theft and entering with intent to steal and was bailed to return for sentencing on 1 September.
Residents watch the smouldering Carpetright building, set alight during Saturday’s riot on Tottenham High Road in London. Photograph: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images
10.09am: @riotcleanup, has posted a list of places where people in London can donate today to help people who have suffered loss as a result of the disorder. The locations are:
Tottenham Green Leisure Centre, 1 Philip Lane, N15 4JA from 9am
Camden Town 11am to 2pm
Outside White Cube gallery/corner of Rufus St/Hoxton Square 11am to 2.30pm
Outside the Majestic Wine Warehouse 63-63A, Chalk Farm Road, Chalk Farm, London, NW1 8AN. (Near the Nandos) 11am to 2pm
Paddington Library 6pm
It is asking for «donations of any kind, from clothes to household goods, new underwear, towels, blankets, baby food, disposable nappies, sanitary towels, toiletries, deoderants, make-up, magazines, entertainment etc».
@riotcleanup is also holding a meeting with the GLA to discuss ways forward on the clean up.
The UK riot clean up page, set up by the Guardian’s communities team, also has details of where people can donate or seek help if they have been affected. And a blog – Keep Aaron cutting – has been set up for people to help restore a barber shop featured in the Guardian’s Tottenham riots damage photogallery.
9.55am: We have reporters at a number of courts today, as those arrested come before the authorities. Jasmine Coleman is at City of Westminster magistrates which has been sitting overnight. She says that about 100 preliminary cases have been heard in the past 12 hours or so and the court expects to process further 30 defendants today. Among them are some members of a 16-strong gang standing together over the rioting in London.
9.53am: Nottinghamshire police say an 11-year-old girl has been charged with criminal damage and attempted criminal damage and has been remanded in custody.
Three people have been charged with posting messages on Facebook encouraging disorder – one in Sussex and two in Lancashire.
Sussex police said Nathan Sinden, 27, who was arrested yesterday has been charged with «intentionally encouraging/assisting the commission of an either way offence, namely burglary and criminal damage».
Sinden, from St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, will appear at Hastings magistrates court today.
Christopher Schofield, 25, from, Nelson, and Warren Calvert, 19, from Heysham, have been charged with intentionally encouraging or assisting in the commission of an either way offence, believing it would be committed, Lancashire police said.
A spokeswoman for Lancashire constabulary said Schofield was bailed to appear before Burnley magistrates’ court on Monday and Calvert is due at Lancaster magistrates’ court on August 25.
Haroon Jahan, Shezad Ali and Abdul Musavir who were killed in Winson Green, Birmingham Photograph: Reuters
9.30am: West Midlands police say they have been given more time to question a 32-year-old man on suspicion of murder in connection with the death of three men – Haroon Jahan, 21, and brothers Shazad Ali, 30 and Abdul Musavir, 31 – who were victims of an alleged hit-and-run in Birmingham in the early hours of Wednesday.
9.18am: People are starting to emerge from the emergency Cobra meeting, chaired by David Cameron. Outside the meeting, the Acpo president, Hugh Orde, said there had been a return to a semblance of normality but there was no complacency. He also said he expected «hundreds» more arrests.
Photograph: Arj Singh/PA
9.14am: The Metropolitan deputy assistant police commissioner, Stephen Kavanagh told BBC Breakfast more than 100 arrest warrants are being executed this morning (a raid on an estate in Pimlico has already been reported). He said there would be 16,000 officers on the streets again tonight and the situation will then be reviewed.
Kavanagh also said some of his officers were «disappointed» with the punishments handed out to rioters and looters by the courts.
That has been personally raised by me and others, and the commissioner I know has also raised it, so we will move through those issues and I am confident we will get the support of the courts.
9.02am: An estate in Pimlico has been raided by police in connection with the riots, according to Sky News’s Emma Birchley. She has tweeted:
55 met police officers carry out four co-ordinated raids on flats in pimlico’s Churchill estate related to #londonriots.
Hugo boss clothes recovered with labels in and trainers in boxes believed to have been stolen during looting in #londonriots.
Two arrested so far in Churchill gardens estate. Cash also recovered. Part of wider raids across London.
Eyewitness Oliver Munson tweeted:
Just seen at least 50 riot police raid the Churchill Gardens Estate, Pimlico. Doors being busted down, thieves rounded up. Good to see.
8.40am: This is Haroon Siddique taking over from Matt Wells. You can email me at haroon.siddique@guardian.co.uk or contact me on Twitter @Haroon_Siddique.
Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA
After his interview with Radio 5 Live, Nick Clegg moved into the Radio 4 Today programme studio. He reiterated his claim that the cuts to the police force would not undermine their ability to control similar incidents in the future. He presented a number of arguments, including that the cuts to frontline police numbers will not be what people are saying they will be and that officers could also be drafted in from other areas to help when there is a particular flashpoint, as they have been in the past few days.
The deputy prime minister was asked whether he agreed with his pre-election comments that that if a society becomes too greedy, it causes «these problems».
Clegg said he stood by those comments but added:
None of that can be an excuse under any circumstances for people going out and trashing their own communities.
He went on to say:
We need to ask ourselves that why it is, why, when they had the opportunity, a number of people took that [and] their first priority was to go out and smash a shop window.
But Clegg rejected the idea that the disorder should give the government pause for thought on its cuts programme.
Nothing is going to be fixed by shrugging our shoulders and saying that all of the [debt] problems we’ve got now, we’re going to heap on the shoulders of the next generation.
8.01am: Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, is being interviewed on Radio 5 Live now. He’s being pressed on the planned police cuts. In a piece of logic that I somehow doubt will be accepted by his critics, he says the savings will allow police to put more officers on the street.
I think it is ridiculous to try and draw a link between out-and-out criminality and savings we are asking police forces to make as if somewhow there’s a link between people smashing windows and savings the police forces have to make which will be entirely manageable and will allow police forces to dramatically increase officers on the street.
7.48am: As the riots die down, the commentators have been having their say. Here is a selection:
In the Daily Telegraph, Allison Pearson asks how we ended up «with some of the most indisciplined and frighteningly moronic youngsters in Europe». In a thoughtful piece, she says parents must take responsibility:
What our young people need is adults to stop abdicating authority. They need police to police, teachers to teach, parents to parent, politicians and clergy to give moral leadership, and, above all, they need more people like Pauline Pearce, the jazz-singing Jamaican grandmother who fearlessly took on rioters and saved a white man from the mob.
In the Guardian, Zoe Williamswarns against the «Blitz spirit» turning into vigilantism.
Big society might look like people on the streets with brooms or doner knives; but that’s not what functional society looks like.
The New York Times carries a piece by London-based sociologists Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen. Under the headline «Cameron’s Broken Windows», they draw parallels between government cuts here and calls to slash the state.
Britain’s current crisis should cause us to reflect on the fact that a smaller government can actually increase communal fear and diminish our quality of life. Is that a fate America wishes upon itself?
And finally in the Daily Mail, Melanie Phillips (not predictably at all) blames the riots on the «liberal intelligentsia»
So now the chickens have well and truly come home terrifyingly to roost. The violent anarchy that has taken hold of British cities is the all-too-predictable outcome of a three-decade liberal experiment which tore up virtually every basic social value.
7.31am: The focus today will switch to parliament, which has been recalled for a special one-day session to discuss the unrest. The prime minister, David Cameron, will make a statement in which he is expected to spell out further plans to deal with the disorder and compensate riot-damaged businesses. Political leaders have been attacked for being impotent in the face of the riots. There will be intense pressure on politicians to come up with answers about how both to regain control of the streets in the short term, and what to do about the causes and longer-term repercussions.
There will also doubtless be pressure over planned cuts to the police force. Our political editor, Patrick Wintour, reports today that Cameron is facing growing cabinet pressure to rethink the policing cuts.
A senior government source said the Home Office would be advised to take a fresh look at its plans to cut £2bn from police funding over the next few years. «The optics have changed,» the source told the Guardian.
We’ll have full coverage of the statement and debate with our senior political correspondent, Andrew Sparrow, who will be live blogging from Westminster.
7.22am: West Midlands police have issued an update about the situation in Birmingham.
It said that officers have been arresting people linked to disorder in the area earlier in the week. Solihull Magistrates Court opened throughout the night to deal with some of those already in custody. Five have been jailed.
7.18am: The magistrates’ court in Manchester has been sitting overnight to deal with 117 people in custody in the city. Early indications are that tough sentences are being handed down from the bench.
Owen Flanagan, 28, Levenshulme, was jailed for eight months after he pleaded guilty to two counts of burglary – stealing £75 of clothing from former Oasis singer Liam Gallagher’s Pretty Green fashion boutique and two electrical items.
Bernard Moore, 46, of Monsall, pleaded guilty to using threatening words or behaviour likely to cause alarm or distress and assaulting a constable in the execution of their duty.
Moore, who was said to have been clearly under the influence of alcohol or drugs, shouted abuse at officers trying to deal with disorder. He then attempted to gouge out the officer’s eye with his finger. He was jailed for 20 weeks.
7.13am: Police believe they now know the identity of the man who suffered life-threatening injuries when he tried to stop teenage rioters during disorder in Ealing, west London on Monday.
Detectives investigating the attack on the man have also released CCTV footage of a suspect and a potential witness.
You can read the full story here.
7.09am: Scotland Yard has said that 888 people had now been arrested in connection with violence, disorder and looting in London, with 371 charged.
7.03am: The Malaysian student who was mugged in Barking, east London, by young men who appeared to be going to his aid, has been speaking about his ordeal.
Ashraf Haziq, 20, told one of his friends who visited him in the Royal London hospital in east London, that they threatened to stab him.
His friend recorded their conversation in hospital and posted it on YouTube. Channel 4 News has translated the footage. Haziq said: «Some of them were quite young, maybe still in primary school. They had their hoods on and demanded my bicycle.»
6.45am: Good morning and welcome to our continuing live coverage of the aftermath of riots across England where there calm appears to have descended.
Here’s a round-up of the main overnight developments:
• There was no repeat of the mass disorder seen previously in London and other major cities, including Liverpool, Birmingham and Manchester. There were a few minor skirmishes and a number of arrests but overall the situation across England was much calmer.
• Police have been deployed in force in major cities across England. There were 6,000 police officers deployed in Birmingham.. At a vigil in the city for three men who were killed in an alleged hit-and-run incident on Tuesday, the father of one of the victims appealed for calm.
• In London there were some clashes between police and EDL supporters in Eltham. Police made a number of arrests.
• Special court hearings have been held into the night in cities affected by the rioting. Hundreds of people have now appeared in court.
