Muddle at the Met

Yet it is unclear whether the Deputy Prime Minister’s intervention, or Home Secretary Theresa May’s decision to cut short her holiday, will make a dramatic difference when the Metropolitan Police appears so bereft of strong leadership.

Ordinarily, the absence of a permanent Commissioner would not make a material difference to policing on the ground. Yet the Met appears unable to deploy proportionate amounts of policing, presumably because some of its senior officers have become embroiled in so many controversies rather than dealing with the practicalities of policing a challenging community like Tottenham.

Having over-policed some protests in London in recent years, the Met clearly did not deploy sufficient officers on Saturday night when Tottenham began to resemble a war zone. The consequence is that the rioters – some of whom are young people with nothing better to do – believe that looting is fair game because there is little likelihood that they will be caught.

This sends out a totally misleading message and Scotland Yard must be seen to be getting to grips with crisis before the argument in favour of recruiting Bill Bratton, the former New York and Los Angeles police chief, as the next Commissioner becomes an overwhelming one.

A final point needs to be made. In a year’s time, London will be hosting the Olympics. Can the Met oversee the country’s largest ever security operation – and any civil disobedience that may or may not take place?

On current form, the answer is “no” – unless it undergoes radical change from the top downwards.