The Government's own analysis of the social make-up of the rioters, reported in The Independent today (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/crime/official-cabinet-ministers-wrong-about-cause-of-riots-2375515.html), provides little comfort for its own 'just feral criminality' interpretation. It will not surprise the rest of us. The low percentage of gang-members is of less relevance than the comment that they were 'not pivotal'. 13% could have been decisive if it had formed a well-organised core. As it is, the Metropolitan Police's dreadful, arrogant bungling of the initial (peaceful) protest about their handling of the shooting of a suspectled to a violent upsurge of suppressed resentment and frustration that, contrary to what I said before, in some respects was quite 'tactical' in its initial stages, in that it was aimed at the police who were seen as the root of the problem.
