the problem the police have - and it's a problem you can see on streets right now - is that they can neither disperse their officers in penny packets nor concentrate them with any chance of 'success'. about half two there were pairs of officers dotted along the kingsland road in dalston and at highbury there were a couple of btp. what fucking use will they be if something kicks off? equally, concentrating them is unlikely to work because of the number of flashpoints there may well be. it's not like a demo where everyone's in one place or in one part of london - people will be in disparate parts of the city and will be highly mobile. in addition, where people on demonstrations have been notably reticent about burning buildings down since march 1990, the people on the streets now show no such reluctance. but perhaps more importantly only a couple of thousand - perhaps 3,000 - of the cops on the streets tonight will be public order trained. the other 13,000 are there to make up the numbers.
looking more closely at the numbers, they will have to be divided into shifts: no point asking some flatfoot plod to do 12 hours straight. in other words, while 16,000 sounds a fuck of a lot, it will be something much nearer 8,000 about at any one time. this too brings with it a number of logistical difficulties: will the met have so many suits of riot gear? i don't think so. and for people dressing up in riot gear for the first time in years, if they do, practical problems like going to the toilet will arise.
when things are in this context, raising the stakes seems like a fucking stupid thing to do, which is probably why they'll do it. the police are already stretched to fuck and if a couple more places - glasgow or edinburgh, coventry, leeds, wherever - then the police will be fucked. so the police have to win this quickly. but if they go for plastic baton rounds or exemplary beatings then their opposition will be more angry - and there are tens of thousands of young people who'd likely come out at that point. what i'm wondering is if the rioters will have a proper crack at the west end. they've broken their fear of the police and it would seem the logical end point for a spree of looting. but if they remain in the suburbs and their local areas, their home advantage may give them the edge over an increasingly tired police force which through fatigue and through the introduction of inexperienced officers are likely to make substantial errors.
the police leadership is absolutely dire, though this is no new thing. victory's been handed on a plate to the rioters, if they only turn out and take it. cracking down hard with beatings or running vehicles through crowds or baton rounds is likely to inflame the situation and to lead to a death. and if the cops kill someone then there'll be hell to pay.
