London Riots Spread to Other UK Cities

Submitted by Foreign Students on Tue 09/08/11

Riots that started in small pockets of London on Saturday night, had last night spread throughout much of the Capital as well as to several other cities in the UK. Buildings and cars were set on fire, shops were looted and police were attacked in what are being called the worst riots in living memory.

It all started in Hackney, in East London, as early as 5pm yesterday afternoon, as young people, many of them teenagers, clashed with police. It quickly escalated and spread throughout the Capital as the police struggled to control the widespread violence. By midnight, huge fires blazed and shops had been emptied of their goods in Croydon, Peckham, Lewisham and Clapham in the South of London, Enfield in the North and Ealing in the West.

However, for the first time, the violence also spread to other UK cities, as copy-cat rioters surged through Liverpool, Birmingham and Bristol. If there was still the suggestion that the Saturday riots were motivated by the shooting of Mark Duggan, that has now been completely dismissed after these outbreaks in other cities. Indeed, the riots have been met with absolute condemnation from all sides, with Prime Minister David Cameron the latest to attack the "sickening scenes" as "criminality pure and simple".

Retaliation Tonight

This morning the attention has turned to how the government and London Metropolitan Police are going to stop the same thing happening tonight. David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson have both already cut their holidays short and returned to the UK, and a special parliamentary session has been planned for Thursday.

To try and combat the rioting tonight, the number of police officers is being increased from 6,000 to 16,000 as they attempt to swamp the areas under threat. What's more, with all the London prison cells full after 450 arrests in London in three days, surrounding areas' cells have been opened up.

The police, government and public are all hoping that the worst of the riots are now over and that a semblance of control can begin to be gained not just in London, but throughout the UK's cities.

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