London-watch

All is relatively quiet in London as the sun sets, and the Metropolitan Police has beefed up its presence for the night ahead; a night too late perhaps. There have been crisis talks at 10 Downing Street, and PM David Cameron is talking tough saying that if people are old enough to be involved in the madness, they are old enough to face the consequences; if they get caught, of course.

At the moment though, there's more concern over cities outside London; Birmingham and Manchester in particular are experiencing copycat looting and disorder, and it seems as though police resources will again be stretched to the limit.

We were struck with a bit of footage we saw on 3News last night; a young woman asked by a journalist why she was involved in the looting. Her reply: "We're just getting our taxes back." was telling. She was a woman perhaps 20 years old, so hardly a lifetime taxpayer. And the looting so far has been directed at businesses, not against the government; it made no sense.

We reckon that this mindless, wanton disorder is highly opportunistic; young thugs and thugesses have spotted an opportunity for a rip-off on a grand scale, and that's what's going on. Let's hope that the police can round up as many of the offenders as possible, and that when they "face the consequences" as David Cameron promised they would, those consequences are harsh enough to be a deterrent.