These riots could be Cameron’s Falklands War. That’s what just occurred to me, as I was watching my television, as the arson and rioting spreads throughout London and beyond.
Some man on the telly – I don’t know who or what he was – has just said, very uneloquently, that we are about to learn what David Cameron is made of. His decision concerning when to come home from his holiday (arguably he left it far too late), in Tuscany, will pale into insignificance beside the decisions that he will have to make in the course of the next few days.
Enoch Powell said something very similar of a previous Prime Minister, a great deal more memorably, at the time of that earlier war. You can read here what Powell then said, if you scroll down to the bottom of the page:
“The Prime Minister, shortly after she came into office, received a soubriquet as the ‘Iron Lady’. It arose in the context of remarks which she made about defence against the Soviet Union and its allies; but there was no reason to suppose that the Right Hon. Lady did not welcome and, indeed, take pride in that description. In the next week or two this House, the nation and the Right Hon. Lady herself will learn of what metal she is made.”
Nobody has ever made any such observation about David Cameron, or not in my hearing, but a similar examination of him is now about to occur.
It could actually be the making of the man. But then again, …
Alas, this kind of thing is the Health of the State.
LATER:
Labour politicians and spokespersons are out in force, if only to make it clear that they too are against it all. Smart move. The trick in these situations is to blame your political opponents, but without seeming to blame your political opponents.
Kevin McGuire, a journalist close to the previous political regime, has just said something rather more memorable:
“If he comes back from holiday, and it makes no difference, what’s the point of having a Prime Minister?”
In other words, if he makes no difference, we should have a different Prime Minister. As indeed we should. Nicely put.
Should the government put the army on the streets (from a libertarian standpoint)?
Are they likely to?
What would the legal obstacles to this be?
The police are impotent vs a mobile, diffuse group that have decent comms and probably greater numbers. Once the cat is out of the bag, it’s hard to get it back in. And the police working double-shifts in a losing effort are going to be a spent force sooner rather than later.
So what does Dave do? He has to quiet things, and the only option is martial law and army on the streets. Once the army is on the streets, it’s down to operational effectiveness and luck. Cameron has no influence there. And the liberal media will blame him for problems and give him little credit for success.
Write your shopping lists tonight and buy emergency supplies tomorrow.
The last time the British Government put the army on the street (1969) all it took was a phone call. However, it is worth bearing in mind that other than Ulster no government has put the army on the street since 1819. (If memory serves).
@Patrick
Agreed that it is an appalling political gamble. But the Met is drawing on support all the way from Cleveland at the mo. That is unsustainable.
If they bring the army in tomorrow (assuming there are enough troops), they can be backup/under supervision of the Met. Wait till next Tuesday, and the Met will be a spent force. There are cops pulling a 15 hour shift in body armour today, after a 24 hour shift yesterday.
Unless he has another option, the policing situation demands instant reinforcements. Likewise, when Cameron comes back tomorrow, he has to be seen to take a decision which changes the course of play. I don’t see another option than curfew, mobile service blackouts at police request, and army support for the police.
Maybe it’s time to visit my family in rural Wiltshire for a while?
In many ways wrong.
This is guerriilla and will be later civil war not a fight between 2 countries.
This is just the first blows of a long civilization war.
There is no way that Cameron will claim any victory.
The is a wave much bigger than him.
He has no one that will be willing to fire a bullet for him.
The State and the Left and Right Socialists that rule it have been for decades attacking who are paying the bills and the Police have been for years going after minor offences of the people that pays the bills.
Most people will not defend the regime.
Heard about this on TV recently. Churchill put troops on the streets of Liverpool in June 1911 to deal with protesters, and a warship was stationed in the Mersey during the general transport strike. There were violent clashes and some people died.
I think they also put troops and tanks on the streets of Glasgow to break up rioters during a strike in 1919.
A reporter on Sky News recently commented that he was told that in regards to the rioting, the army has not been put on standby…. yet.
But it is obvious that the Met Police are completely overwhelmed and are largely ineffectual. And this can’t be allowed to continue. The public will not put up with it for long, and DEMAND that something be done. FEAR is a powerful emotion. Cameron needs to get on top of this. And political sound bites in front of the cameras won’t be good enough.
If this criminal anarchy continues and spreads further afield, and the police can’t cope… the army will muster. What other choice is there? Sometimes you really do need a sledgehammer to crack a wallnut.
Does the British Army even have any combat ready units, after the recent budget cuts?
It’s awful to watch but was there any question that the economic and social decay would end with this, or should I say begin with this?
The welfare state has decivilised much of the younger generation, the political class is a dithering jello of poltical correctness, and the public, alas, has lost touch with the culture that once made the UK great.
Pragmatism, fortitude, courage; these virtues have all but disappeared. Or emigrated.
Harry Brown, we need you!
Sorry if this is obvious or covered elsewhere, but what are these riots about? Who is rioting and why?
Can’t say you weren’t warned. Put your “less capable” native born on the dole and import immigrants to do the scutwork, sooner or later you get this.
Even Jim Hacker would handle this better…..
No need to get out of shape. The state will protect you . . . eventually . . . maybe . . . get in line and fill out the proper forms and don’t you DARE try to defend yourself or your property either. You might hurt someone out to hurt you. Can’t have that.
Call in Francis Urqhart; he wouldn’t put up with this nonsense.
I keep hearing whinging on the BBC about how the police aren’t sending their community relations people down to talk to the rioters. Are they serious? Even the looniest leftist here in the States would be rolling on the floor hearing this.
@The Grey Man:
Actually, I was thinking of Hacker when I read Brian’s headline. Specifically, I was thinking of this famous exchange…
HACKER: This could be my Falklands!
SIR HUMPHREY: Yes, Minister; and you would be General Galtieri!
Nichevo, do they need an excuse? Isn’t rioting a human right?
As I understand it, some coppers pre-emptively ‘shot back’ at an unarmed civilian they were supposed to be arresting, and some people took offence at this. The protest turned into a riot, because the police have form, as the Brits say about habitual offenders and liars.
How does this compare to the King riots in L.A.? Our riots in Cronulla, here in Sydney, were over in a flash!
In the years to come the UK will have to somehow pay off several trillion pounds of debt while reintroducing a completely degenerate swathe of society to work and personal responsibility.
Can it be done with the politicians, police and conventional wisdom that exist today?
I wouldn’t bet on it. And, personally, as someone who had never owned a gun, I would be extremely uncomfortable being unarmed in a British city in the next decade or two.
One difference: “On the fourth day, 4,000 soldiers and Marines arrived from Fort Ord and Camp Pendleton to disperse the crowds and restore order. Soon after the military arrived, order was restored”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rodney_king_riots#Fourth_day_.28Saturday.2C_May_2.29
And thus burns the UK.
It is sad, but it is inevitable. Entrenched socialism creates an atmosphere of entitlement along with economic hardship. Multiculturalism inhibits assimilation, creates a heated atmosphere of of “us vs them”. Especially when one or more of those multiple cultures does not respect normal societal mores. The .gov disarms the population and prosecutes those who would have the audacity to at least attempt to defend themselves and/or defend their property.
All it takes in such an atmosphere is a spark.
Why am I not surprised?
Thankfully, it hasn’t gotten that bad here. Not yet. We still have the right to defend ourselves and still have the right to acquire the means to do so. For now.
What was that again? Something about rivers of something? or was it something of blood???
That’s well out of context, Cliff.
I presume there are police in Britain who are armed. To my way of thinking, starting fires in an urban area is a very dangerous activity and getting shot for doing so is very reasonable. Why haven’t the British police been shooting looters and arsonists? This will send a message to the “youths” in a language they can understand.
Somewhere Anthony Burgess is saying, “I told you so!”
I had thought that when people realise that the Police don’t work they might then make the jump to thinking that they don’t really need the state. However, other commentators make a good point that once the Army come in the State is reinforced as their protector.
I feel for all those people who have lost livelihoods and for the insurance premiums they will have to pay for the pleasure of living in Multicultural Britain.
Cameron is a Ted Heath, not a Margaret Thatcher.
No way a Falklands, more like a winter of discontent.
Nuke, Nichevo: That’s what they were about up till maybe Saturday. Now it’s just criminality for the sake of it. The bizarre thing for me, watching last night on TV, was that the rioters are neither furtive in their looting nor, for the most part, openly confrontational with the police or anyone else, as you might expect in a riot with a Cause. The impression I get is that they scattered at the sound of a single police siren… only there weren’t many. Reporters were able (provided they concealed their profession) to talk to them quite openly, and none seemed to have much of a reason, good or otherwise, for his actions. It’s not UK Uncut, however much they try to associate themselves with it (and if I were them, I wouldn’t: any organisation linked, however tenuously, to the burning of people’s homes isn’t one likely to garner much public support); it’s not racial – black and white faces were plain to see in the mob; and it’s not some kind of anti-authoritarian uprising – if nothing else, the mobs were relatively small, numbered in the low hundreds. Big enough if you’re on the sharp end, but nothing compared to the SWP-mustered dial-a-thug events we’ve seen over the years. And nothing compared to the local population. Most locals seem to have been stunned, terrified, and horrified.
The weak police response on the first couple of days, and the realisation that shop- and home-owners were being actively discouraged from defending their property themselves, seem to have led to the logical consequence: simple lawlessness.
The “winter of discontent” didn’t just bring down a Prime Minister who had no idea how to respond. It was also the final nail in the coffin of the “post-war consensus” on economic policy. From that point on there was no chance that the public would accept the status quo any longer. These riots are likely to have the same effect on public attitudes towards the welfare state and the left-liberal approach to crime. The whole system will be so discredited that the vast majority of the population will be clamouring for radical change.
This will change NOTHING
After the riots, the police will be reprimanded for ‘heavy-handed’ tactics, community ‘leaders’ will be apologized to and more money will flow into the coffers of the perma-dole, the Islamic community and to everyone who claims they were affected by the riots
The Lion’s Roar has been silenced.
The Lion has had no stomach since World War One (WWII was not Britain’s courage, it was solely the resolution of Churchill. the average Englander wanted to get out of the war from 1940)
It would be nice for Cameron if the riots were indeed “his Falklands”.
But that is still to come, just as soon as the RN is well atrophied.
Cameron’s Falklands moment will come when Argentina figures out how to sabotage the FOUR combat aircraft in the islands and park a submarine in the middle of the Atlantic. Meanwhile the Venezuelan, Bolivian and Cuban troops will accompany the Argentine “liberators.”
France is the only permanent UN security council member that might vote with the UK.
Mrs Thatcher would probably say: “I wouldn’t start from here.”
The only thing to do is reading the following over the BBC and via megaphone, “Our Sovereign Lord the Queen chargeth and commandeth all persons, being assembled, immediately to disperse themselves, and peaceably to depart to their habitations, or to their lawful business, upon the pains contained in the act made in the first year of King George, for preventing tumults and riotous assemblies. God Save the King!” This unleashes the law abiding who are excused all liability in supressing the riot. On top of that, send in the army.
One commentor here asked whether libertarian philosophy would permit using the army to quell the violence. Remember that while libertarians oppose initiation of force, especially by the gov, they do not oppose defensive force in response to others who initiate force or theft. Once the demonstrators turned into a mob and started looting and burning, the gov is justified to resort to whatever measures are necessary to restore public order and safety. And individuals are also justified in using any force necessary to defend their property.
This could be Camerons only option to obliterate the past Governments and say “I stood up to help Libyans, the past government helped hold them down.” However this enquiry will have about as much clout as the one for Dr Kelly or Iraq. Mr Blair will put on his white suit and stand by the river Jordan and swear it was because it was the right thing to do. God told him to be strong…. How wrong he is.
I hear Blairs next pitch is on evangelistic television where he will pray for you for a few dollars more.