London's Burning

Rolling BBC News coverage

LONDON descended into a third night of looting, fires and general violent disorder as the light declined on the capital city tonight.

Fresh riots erupted on both sides of the Thames in Lewisham, Peckham, Clapham Junction and in Hackney, Chalk Farm and Camden.

The BBC news channel carried dramatic footage of a family-owned furniture store in Croydon being incinerated in a huge blaze.

And, for the first time, the violence spread today outside of London to Birmingham city centre. 

It seems that the "summer of rage", as previously predicted by Met Police chiefs, simply took two more years to arrive than they had expected.

These are the worst cases of civil disorder since the early 1980s when Britain was also in a recession.

The first sign of the disorder arrived on Saturday night in Tottenham when a protest march linked to the fatal police shooting of Mark Duggan last Thursday turned nasty.

Since then, though, there has been little pattern to the violence and the original link to Mr Duggan's death seems to have been long ago forgotten.

The rioting and looting is now completely indiscriminate with the outnumbered police largely powerless to prevent it all from happening.

Scotland Yard has confirmed 225 people have now been arrested over the three days, though only 35 have been charged. West Midlands police in Birmingham has made a further 87 arrests tonight.

But, while the police response has been wholly inadequate, the politicians cannot even claim to have reached that level.

Of course, August is usually the month in which MPs choose to take a break as they are not required to sit in the House of Commons in Westminster.

However, to borrow a phrase, there is a feeling that many of them have fiddled while London has burnt.

For instance, while parts of the capital resemble a war-zone with running battles between the police and looters, Prime Minister David Cameron was sunning himself in Italy.

And, amid this week's financial gloom and impending financial collapse, the Chancellor George Osborne has been in Los Angeles.

Meanwhile, in the interests of political balance, it must be said Labour leader Ed Miliband has also been very quiet in Devon.

At least there has now been some movement was made by the powers-that-be as Mr Cameron and London mayor Boris Johnson joined Home Secretary Theresa May in cutting short their summer break.

Tomorrow, Mr Cameron will hold an emergency cabinet meeting at 9am.

I suppose it is better late than never but, so far in the crisis, the members of the government have hardly given the impression, as they like to remind us, that "we're all in this together".

Meanwhile, some sympathy has been expressed for the youths causing the violence and the social deprivation which they face.

True, there is an argument that a whole section of society has completely forgotten, left to live an almost pointless existence permanently on benefits.

But a few hundred hooded hooligans are hardly representative even of the underclass and the real victims here anyway are the tenants and the home-owners who have been displaced and distressed.

Indeed, not every shop which has been damaged, destroyed or looted has belonged to a multi-national corporation as the furniture store owners will vouch.

Now, Charlton Athletic and West Ham United fans have also been affected by the riots. The Addicks were due to play Reading while the Hammers faced Aldershot but both matches have been postponed on police safety grounds.

The current fear is that the riots will not stop until someone is killed. And, in that respect, the Met Police has utterly failed to protect its people while the politicians have been non-existent.

On his election last year, Mr Cameron promised to build a Big Society.

Tonight, though, that vision seems more vague than ever - in fact, as most suspected all along, it is a complete pipe-dream.

Lib Dems divide in Government's tuition fee vote victory

PROPOSED MOTION
That, for the purpose of section 24 of the Higher Education Act 2004, the higher amount should be increased to £9,000, and to £4,500 in the cases described in regulation 5 of the draft regulations in Command Paper Cm 7986, and that the increase should take effect from 1 September 2012.
Result: Ayes (for) 323 Noes (against) 302
Government majority: 21

TUITION fees at some universities could rise to as much as £9,000 a year after the coalition government survived a backbench rebellion to win a narrow victory.

The government had its majority cut by three-quarters as 21 Lib Dem MPs and six Conservative MPs opposed the motion in the Commons last week.

But the support of Lib Dem ministers, gained earlier in the week when party leader Nick Clegg earned some concessions, was vital in pushing through the measure.

That support will prove controversial at a grassroots level in the party as the original coalition agreement allowed Lib Dems to abstain.

However, with the measure having been introduced by Business Secretary Vince Cable, a Lib Dem, the Tories accused their junior coalition partners of not putting their whole weight behind the government.

As a result, Deputy Prime Minister Mr Clegg got all of his ministers on side but this meant there was a clear three-way split at the highest levels of his party.

While Mr Clegg, Mr Cable and the other ministers voted for a rise in tuition fees, party president Tim Farron was among the 21 Lib Dem MPs to vote against.

Deputy leader of the party Simon Hughes abstained along with five others and two MPs - Chris Huhne and Martin Horwood - were at the Cancun climate summit and could not attend.

Calls for unity by Mr Clegg look optimistic at best and the split between front-bench and back-bench Lib Dem MPs has damaged the party in the public eye.

Moreover, the fact that the measure ultimately relied on Lib Dem support hardly helped either.

Energy Secretary Mr Huhne admitted so much in saying that the party was "going to go through a period of immense unpopularity".

And the vote seems to have had an effect on the Lib Dems' already dreadful poll rating as it tumbled even further last week.

A showing of just 8% in YouGov's daily tracker last Wednesday was their lowest level of support for the party since September 1990.

If the figure was applied in a general election, the Lib Dems would be left with just a handful of seats, and it is becoming harder and harder for many supporters to see the value of them being in this coalition.

Indeed, former director of policy Richard Grayson has suggested the Lib Dems have moved too far to the right and need to re-engage with Labour.

Ed Miliband, the recently-elected Labour leader, acted swiftly on Mr Grayson's article, offering Lib Dems the chance to have an input on Labour's policy review.

But, even Mr Farron, who voted against the rise in fees, called the move "desperate" and it certainly looks that way as Mr Miliband deals with some early struggles.

Although Labour remain steady in the polls, unlike the flailing Lib Dems, members of Mr Miliband's own party still seem uncertain about his position.

Anthony Wells on UK Polling report writes: "19% of current Labour supporters and 21% of people who voted Labour in 2010 think that Ed Miliband isn’t up to it. 23% of Labour supporters aren’t sure.

"Asked whether Ed or David Miliband would have made the better leader, 36% of Labour supporters think David would have been better, 26% think Ed was the right choice."

Ed Miliband's weak performances as the Despatch Box in Prime Minister's Questions will not have helped.

But his low personal rating can be probably more easily attributed to his party's incoherence on this issue of tuition fees.

Mr Miliband and his Shadow Chancellor Alan Johnson took opposing views on the alternative policy of a graduate tax before Mr Johnson made an unconvincing U-turn to support his leader.

In the supposed new era for the party which went beyond the rivalry of Tony Blair and Gordon Brown - and against an unpopular coalition policy to boot - Labour looked lost in opposition.

Only the Conservatives can be happy with the way the vote went and - even then - it was a stark reminder of their failure to gain an overall majority and the resultant reliance on the Lib Dems.

It should also be noted that the policy was not unanimously supported by the Tories with former party leadership candidate David Davis the highest-profile of the six rebels.

Mr Davis comes from a working class background and said he was worried that the enormous fees - while not paid up front - would still put off genuinely talented people from going to university.

This opposition from the likes of Mr Davies, and former Lib Dem leaders Charles Kennedy and Menzies Campbell, suggests to me that the motion to defer the decision should have also been put to the vote.

But the speaker John Bercow rejected this alternative and so died the last remaining hope for students, school pupils and academic staff.

Unsurprisingly, the result saw the all-day student protest in London take a turn for the worse.

The stories in the newspapers centred on this and the news-desks got their 'money-shot' when Prince Charles and Camilla, showing incredibly little tact, were caught up in the violence in their car.

Elsewhere, the statue of Winston Churchill was shamefully daubed with graffiti while Charlie Gilmour - the son of Pink Floyd guitarist David - was arrested after climbing on the Cenotaph and appearing to tear the Union flag. He has since apologised.

However, the media focus on the violence meant that valid arguments by peacefully protesting students were largely ignored.

Then, there was the inevitable over-reaction to events. The Daily Mail wrote that Metropolitan Police chief Sir Paul Stephenson implied the protesters were lucky not to be shot, and Home Secretary Theresa May decried the "appalling level of violence".

But Ms May must know that this was nowhere near as bad as the series of scuffles surrounding the Miners' Strike in 1984-85 or the Poll Tax riots in 1990.

What it did show is that, while the government may have won the vote against an unfocused opposition inside the House, they seem to have lost the argument outside of it.

That has already been bad news for the Lib Dems but the pressure may yet start to tell on the Tories - and Ms May might start to see something closer to the reality of her original quote.


FOR THE RECORD: HOW THEY VOTED
LIB DEMS VOTING FOR TUITION FEE RISES (28)
All Liberal Democrat ministers present voted for a rise in tuition fees including Vince Cable, the Business Secretary who tabled the motion, Deputy PM and Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg, and Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander. Government Whip Mark Hunter was a teller which means he supported the government but his name will not appear on the "yes" division list in Hansard.
Danny Alexander (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey)
Norman Baker (Lewes)
Sir Alan Beith (Berwick-upon-Tweed)
Gordon Birtwistle (Burnley)
Tom Brake (Carshalton & Wallington)
Jeremy Browne (Taunton Deane)
Malcolm Bruce (Gordon)
Paul Burstow (Sutton & Cheam)
Vincent Cable (Twickenham)
Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland)
Nick Clegg (Sheffield Hallam)
Edward Davey (Kingston & Surbiton)
Lynne Featherstone (Hornsey & Wood Green)
Don Foster (Bath)
Stephen Gilbert (St Austell and Newquay)
Duncan Hames (Chippenham)
Nick Harvey (Devon North)
David Heath (Somerton & Frome)
John Hemming (Birmingham Yardley)
Mark Hunter (Cheadle)
Norman Lamb (Norfolk North)
David Laws (Yeovil)
Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh & Selkirk)
Andrew Stunell (Hazel Grove)
Jo Swinson (Dunbartonshire East)
Sarah Teather (Brent Central)
David Ward (Bradford East)
Steve Webb (Thornbury and Yate)

LIB DEMS VOTING AGAINST TUITION FEE RISES (21)
Former Lib Dem leaders Sir Menzies Campbell and Charles Kennedy voted against the rise in tuition fees. Michael Crockart resigned his position as parliamentary aide to Michael Moore, the Scottish Secretary. Jenny Willott resigned her position as parliamentary aide to Chris Huhne, the Energy and Climate Secretary.
Annette Brooke (Dorset Mid & Poole North)
Sir Menzies Campbell (Fife North East)
Michael Crockart (Edinburgh West)
Tim Farron (Westmorland & Lonsdale)
Andrew George (St Ives)
Mike Hancock (Portsmouth South)
Julian Huppert (Cambridge)
Charles Kennedy (Ross, Skye & Lochaber)
John Leech (Manchester Withington)
Stephen Lloyd (Eastbourne)
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West)
John Pugh (Southport)
Alan Reid (Argyll & Bute)
Dan Rogerson (Cornwall North)
Bob Russell (Colchester)
Adrian Sanders (Torbay)
Ian Swales (Redcar)
Mark Williams (Ceredigion)
Roger Williams (Brecon and Radnorshire)
Jenny Willott (Cardiff Central)
Simon Wright (Norwich South)

LIB DEMS WHO DID NOT VOTE (8)
Eight Liberal Democrat MPs did not vote. Six abstained and another two - Martin Horwood and Chris Huhne - were abroad in Cancun for the climate change conference. Horwood is expected to have voted against the proposals but Huhne, as a minister, would have voted for.
Lorely Burt (Solihull), abstained
Martin Horwood (Cheltenham), abroad
Simon Hughes (Bermondsey & Old Southwark), abstained
Chris Huhne (Eastleigh), abroad
Tessa Munt (Wells), abstained
Sir Robert Smith (Aberdeenshire W and Kincardine), abstained
John Thurso (Caithness, Sutherland & Easter Ross), abstained
Stephen Williams (Bristol West), abstained

TORY REBELS VOTING AGAINST RISE IN TUITION FEES (6)
There were six Conservative MPs who voted against the rise in tuition fees. Additionally, Lee Scott resigned as parliamentary aide to Transport Secretary Philip Hammond, having abstained from voting. For the record, the rebels were:
Philip Davies (Shipley)
David Davis (Haltemprice and Howden)
Julian Lewis (New Forest East)
Jason McCartney (Colne Valley)
Andrew Percy (Brigg & Goole)
Mark Reckless (Rochester and Strood)