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What a load of guardian reading tripe. People are over analysing this. These scum, yes SCUM are not trying to make any sort of point. Their intelligence levels would not allow it.

I grew up in this "poverty" all you middle class folks speak of, on an estate amongst thugs and thieves that would mug you for pocket change. Adult men who would rob a bike off a 7 year old etc.. This does not stop 99.99999% of everyone retaining civility, rationality and morality. No matter how poor people are or "tough" situation they are in. Remember this is the UK. No one is starving to death here. These yobs just went to rob phones and TV's.

I still live in a community full of this "poverty" you speak of. People doing endless hours for less than minimum wage (typical around here is £3-£4 an hour). Tons of illegals. Lots of plain new immigrants living crammed into tiny terraces 5 to a room. But they would all be thoroughly appalled at this looting.

Kill all these bastards and you would thoroughly improve our capital and other major cities. These are the scum that Mug people, steal bikes, sexually assault, sell drugs to kids, claim unecessary benefits for life and spend it on booze etc.

If there were more muslamists involved im sure the Daily Fail and EDL etc would put a much stronger spin on this.

A lot of people on here don't seem to understand how law and order in our society works, or doesn't work in this case.

It works because people consent to be governed, and accept the rule of law. That is why we don't have armed cops, or a particularly large police force.

What we are seeing right now is that a large group of people have withdrawn their consent to be governed, and are not respecting the rule of law. If this group is sufficiently large, as we have seen, the existing forces of law may not have the numbers to restore order.

We can postulate various ways in which the imbalance of forces can be altered in the short-term so that order can be restored (water cannon, more police, paramilitarising the police, using the Army, paramilitarising sections of the civil population), but unless we figure out why such a large group of people have withdrawn (however temporarily, spuriously or irrationally) their consent to be governed, and take steps to remedy it, this will all happen again, and we will be forced to warehouse large numbers of people in prison, rather as the US has done.

Using the prison system to control people who have no stake in main-stream society, as has been shown in the US, does not work on any level, economically, socially or ethically, especially in view of the recidivism rates.

I don't think it's helpful to present the case as either condemn or understand. You can both condemn the actions, and try to understand the circumstances that lead to the actions.