Not long after I posted my initial thoughts on the UK riots (see below) an email comes winging in from a prominent member of the Pendle Labour Party who has a long history of exasperating people. He wonders when I am going to join the Conservatives.

Perhaps he would have hesitated if the riots had gripped Pendle. What if the three young British Asian men who died while defending their families’ shops from looters came from Brierfield, not Birmingham?

What if Nelson Police Station had been torched or a local mosque had gone up in flames?

Seems to me that those who offer the loftiest analysis of the riots are often the furthest away from the mayhem.

We now know that 8 out of 10 rioters were known to police and 75% had a criminal record which rather underlines the point I made at the time about the riots being the work of an alienated underclass with no hope.

I also have huge sympathy for the police, 282 of whom were injured.

A few years ago when the fox hunting controversy was at boiling point, angry and demented Countryside Alliance protestors tried to storm Parliament and were beaten back by a thin blue line of baton wielding police officers.

I recall watching the battle on Sky television safe and secure inside the old gasworks and telling myself how satisfying it was to have the agents of the State on your side – for once.

Police identification tags

The Toronto Police Board gets plaudits for refusing to go along with the City’s Police Chief, Bill Blair, who wants to promote nine police officers who removed their identification tags before wading into protestors at last year’s G20.

Last December I blogged about this.

I am left wondering what happened to officers in the Met who did exactly the same thing.