UK riots in pictures

I doubt that many of these rioters were politically motivated. Even the most mentally challenged would be hard pressed to believe that causing hundreds of millions of pounds worth damage, endangering (and taking) people’s lives and wrecking hard working people’s lives by ransacking their shops for a free pair of trainers would help alleviate the shortage of youth clubs and libraries. This is opportunism brought about by greed and envy and a total lack of morals. Nothing can excuse this barbaric behaviour. This country is on its uppers and yet some of us think it’s a good idea to add to the financial mess by destroying property and businesses.

Sadly, while there are “good” people willing to try to justify wanton violence and there are morons up for some mayhem, we’re going to be stuck with this behaviour no matter how much cash and sympathy is wasted on trying to placate it.

These rioters clearly got a buzz out of their actions. And as a bonus they managed to drag many hard working shop keepers down to their pecuniary level by destroying in minutes shops that had taken years of hard work to build up. Now as a further bonus they learn that they were acting with the highest of motives, namely the highlighting of social injustice. A few more “demonstrations” like this and I expect our taxes and insurance will rise at the same time as further cuts to public expenditure will have to be made.

Talking of police numbers being reduced...... you're thinking ah! send in the Army! but the Government cut backs are there too. God help us.

They should send in the PSNI Riot Squad - They would soon sort them out. Tear gas, plastic bullets and water cannons. Who cares what skin colour you are: You do the crime - You do the time!

Too liberal a society - too tolerant. Not strict enough of discipline in school. Too acomodating of immigrants - not bad, Britain is well meaning - BUT, extremism should be properly dealt with.
Send them to the Middle East. They would be dead by now, rather than the innocent protesters fighting autocrats for their rights. These people here have it too easy. Britian is too soft! Rights, yes but responsibility as well.

looking at this photo makes me think off northern ireland GOD HELP US ALL, if this is not nipped
in the bud this country is in for something they will never forget when i got married at 19 i had to work hard and find accomadition for my wife and child, it took a while but i did not throw bricks through windows or burn other peoples property or confront the police or anybody else for that matter just done more reserch until i found what i was looking for. not like this lot lets riot steal and burn till we get what we want.

Never mind the Scots Police are coming tonight. They will sort them out!

so much for cost cutting this will cost billions ha ha ha to frigging funny

People should stop making excuses for these rioters.....ban the hoody and covering of your face in public -it can only meen one thing wich is your up to no good - shoot the looters and see how many others will be willing to loot after that use force as its something they seem to understand ..please and thank you with a cup of tea and a cookie definately is not working

lol i meant i would make all 16 yr olds do national service till they are at least 25 not be given the choice. Apparently I cant talk on the phone and type at the same time hahahaha

Im no future predictor but Im affraid this is what the future of britain is going to look like unless with rein in our young peoples attitudes. I am a parent of two and I am seriously getting worried as to what sort of society my kids are growing up into. It doesnt matter what us "good" parents do, their future is going to be ruined at this rate. Also how coincidental that the PM goes away on his 3rd annual(dictionary translation=1 by the way) holiday!!!!! just as the country goes @#$% up AGAIN. Seriuosly if I could emigrate i would but then doubt id get in anywhere lol ridiculous state of affairs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! If I was PM I would make it compulsory for all 16 year olds to get the choice of being made to do national service best idea this country's history of leaders ever had.

I was a Police Officer for 31yrs and went through, the 'Carnival 'riots and those at Broadwater Farm and Brixton. I am as frustrated as everyone else by the seeming inablility of our current day Police to deal with these thugs, I was appalled to see 3 heavily armoured Police Officers , back away, when threatened by a lone rioter ! But , no doubt they wer under orders. The fact is that faith in the Police has eroded to such an extent that a solitary Officer cannot make an arrest (like I used to) as they wil not be believed, so it needs at least 2 Officers to make an arrest, to coroborate each other and also to counter the extreme violence that is offered today (in my day you got an automatic 3 months in prison for assaulting an Officer and yes I know some Officers abused that and thats why it doesn't happen now ) We have to remember when talking of immigrants that the majority of these people will have been born here and ,at odds with a lot of the posters, some of the reasons that the young are disaffected is down to the very strict regime that the older generation West Indians imposed on their children. It was quite common for Fathers to disown their sons if they got into trouble with the law and those youngmen drifted into areas like Electric Avenue where they joined forces with other similar minded youths . Being very young, and no longer in education they were easily led by older Gang members into lawless ways and have not had the leadership of a strong, fair man anymore.

If I were asked how to deal with these people I would tell all the 'Community Leaders' to get themselves down to the scene of these riots , point out that there are such things as Black Criminals,tell them to get their heads out of the sand and use the authority, they say they have within their communities ,to stop this from going any further, there is no excuse for this behaviour, don't let them hide behind the 'shooting incident' as justification, thats rubbish. It their own communities they are destroying, their own people they are putting in peril. In the meantime the older gang members are quietly going about their business of CRIME with impunity.
In a country that is seeing an unprecedented rise in the number of 'black on black ' killings, often of schoolboys, how come the black communities don't take to the streets to protest about the black gangs ? Is it only when the predominately White Police use guns, that they protest?
Come on! this country belongs to all of us, we wouldn't have the history we have without the imput of Immigrants so lets stand together and fight this, life is hard enough today without thousands more being thrown out of work and made homeless because of these riots

What has happened to the London I LOVE????
Why is this happening?
Please God there will be peace now the Gov/Police have decided to really step in.
Hopefully without too much force!

I grew up in the North of Ireland (Belfast) and when there was rioting the British Army didn't use water canons but rubber and plastic bullet rounds to disperse the crowds, while I condem the use of any kind of bullet being shot at a human being I would agree with water canons being used and rounding them all up and intern them until the British police could bring their country back into some kind of order, I don't understand why that is not happening they did that with our men, a lot of innocent men interned for many years until they got justice, so come on arrest everyone of them and show the world what you's brits are made off

I know it will sound as though I'm like all the other posters who've begun to get fed up with these idiots. If they like to set fire to cars, houses, buisneses, then heres a solution. Napalm these idiots on site. clear all the residents out of the area. don't tell them what it's for. Then target these gangs by flying in low and dump oil, petrol any fluids that will catch fire.

You mess with britain because you've nothing better to do with your sad, borring, drug fueled lives while youer sitting back in your knicked sofa from MFI and your widescreen HD ready TV you've just grabbed from the local curry's.

Britains going to get back at you, find you and finish you

Thuggery and criminality cut across all races and creed. The young man killed by police is not the reason why this is happening. Criminals use any excuse to loot and destroy even in the most peaceful of protests. Take a look at the mayday protest and all the peaceful protests done over the years. It starts peacefully at first and then scums come in and use that opportunity,cause chaos and go on looting. This has nothing to do with a particular race but lowlives in the society who use ASBO as a novelty award. The earlier a lot of you spilling all your racist comments on here start getting your brainless heads out of your backsides the sooner we will all tackle this problem. The simultaneous way this madness has been turning out shows it is organised by scums who now scour the social networking sites looking for where to cause trouble. It also makes it worse as this is summer holiday where both school drop-outs and school children on holiday find themselves so idle they join any thing going that they find exciting. Some parents have no clue where their kids are and some don't care what their kids get up to too. I've seen neighbours leave their children as young as 5, play outside as late as 10-11pm at night and scratch all the cars in the neighbourhood but the parents don't bat an eyelid. They are ready to pounce once you go round to complain. As for the police, they have to start using a befitting force for these idiots because any opportunity those thugs get to kill an officer, they will go for it, forgetting that the person behind the uniform is somebody's wife/husband, mum/dad, son/daughter and brother/sister. Once they put political correctness and undeserved human rights aside, believe me, this whole nonsense will come to a halt. And don't tell me its because the youth are disillusioned with the police, that's why they are looting innocent people's shops, attacking decent neighbourhoods, destroying folk's livelihood and their cars because that is bullshit. If they are really disillusioned by the police and the govt. what is stopping them from heading towards the govt. buildings and council and benefits offices where they know it will hurt the govt. if they attacked? Oh no, they know their benefits will be affected and there is no jewelry or flatscreen tv to loot. These people are just scum and when the police get the full support of the govt. they should not pull punches in teaching these fools a lesson or two on how not to behave in public. Enough said.

Why would you want to put that burden on others less fortunate? They themselves would have to deal with boldface and selfish flith just as what Britian is dealing with at the moment. Probably if these ppl were to face starvation and poverty, they just might burn down these other peoples livelihood.

The ignorance and brutality of the rioters is matched only by the ignorance and brutality of most of the posters here. You want to live in a country where police shoot people indiscriminately on the street? You want to do away with democracy, fair trials, the hope of full employment? Do you ever think before expressing an opinion? Do you really want your own sons put in the army and blown to bits in Afghanistan if they can't find work or afford university? What if there aren't enough wars to justify such a vast army? Well with the aggression being expressed here starting a few wars shouldn't be a problem should it? I am not sure how putting young men in the army and training them to kill whoever they're told to kill will make them less violent. Where are the moderators? I thought inciting violence was a crime.

I'm hearing here the voices of the greedy and hard hearted people who vote for the most right wing candidates they can find in order to protect their own narrow interests. Now that the marginalised members of society are fighting back with equal ignorance and violence I hear the voices of the cowardly loudly demanding that someone else put themselves in danger to deal with the consequences of their own selfish actions. The cuts to youth services, mass unemployment, housing shortages and all the other terrible problems were brought about by the greed and stupidity of the few, who now shake in their boots at the thought of the results of their selfish attitudes coming down their street with a brick in its hand to get its revenge.

Rioting is a brutal and pointless reaction but having been on many a peaceful protest and seen police brutality against harmless people it is no wonder that violence takes over. It takes over when every other avenue has failed people. The anger in the land is very great, and increasingly we do not have the rights to protest to defend ourselves in a civilised way. This is exactly why these rights are so important. Without free and fair democracy, without the right to peaceful protest, we are left with thugs tearing the place up, and the only people who benefit are the glaziers.

Shoot these mindless arseholes, most of them probably sponge off others and ruin people's lives and don't give anything good to society. They don't deserve to live in Britain. Maybe they should be sent to less fortunate countries, then we can see how brave they are when there starving hungary and have no where to live.

@patricia, just army? why not SNIPERS? GOVT should give one example! maybe a head shot will do! or even firing squad for looters!

I'm with you Jim, there a bunch of nasty mindless twats that don't give a @#$% about anyone apart from themselves. It's just one big excuse to get rid of their rage regardless of who they hurt or who'e lives they ruin. Bring in the Army!!