MAIL Online: Police are bracing themselves for a 'summer of rage' against the economic crisis, a senior officer warned today.
Superintendent David Hartshorn, who heads the Metropolitan Police's public order branch, said he feared there could be 'mass protest' at rising unemployment, failing financial institutions and the downturn in the economy.
The officer told The Guardian that 'known activists' were planning returns to the streets, and intelligence revealed that they may be able to call on more protesters than normal due to the unprecedented conditions.
He said: 'Those people would be good at motivating people, but they haven't had the "footsoldiers" to actually carry out (protests).
'Obviously the downturn in the economy, unemployment, repossessions, changes that. Suddenly there is the opportunity for people to mass protest.'
Mr Hartshorn, who is regularly briefed on potential causes of civil unrest, singled out April's G20 summit of the leading developed nations in London as one of the events that could kick start a series of protests.
'We've got G20 coming and I think that is being advertised on some of the sites as the highlight of what they see as a "summer of rage",' he said. >>> Daily Mail Reporter | Monday, February 23, 2009
TIMES ONLINE: Give Us Laws that the City Will Respect and Fear
Mug some one in the street and you go to prison, but mug their savings and you can buy a yacht. It's a disgrace to justice
Our system for regulating markets and for prosecuting market crime is completely broken. If you mug someone in the street and you are caught, the chances are that you will go to prison. In recent years mugging someone out of their savings or their pension would probably earn you a yacht.
How did we get here? Well, financial deregulation undoubtedly released great energy and wealth into the markets and did so in part by giving bankers and financiers more space. But this space had another effect. It created a growing distance between wealthy and powerful individuals and the agencies designed to police their behaviour.
Not sensing the danger in this, our two main political parties supported looser regulation over many years. Now, apparently tainted by past misjudgments, they are deeply compromised in trying to find solutions. Yet put simply the scale of failure is laid bare by one inevitable consequence clear for all to see: too many people and too many institutions function as though they are beyond the reach of the criminal law.
In Britain we had an additional burden: legislators who preferred criminal justice to be an auction of fake toughness, so long as the toughness was not too tough to design. So no one likes terrorists? Let's bring in lots of terror laws, the tougher the better.
Let's lock up nasty people longer, and for longer before they are charged. Let's stop medieval clerics winding up the tabloids.
Let's stop off-colour comedians outraging homophobic preachers. Let's pretend that outlawing offensiveness makes the world less offensive.
This frequently made useful headlines. But it didn't make our country or any other country a better or safer place to live. It didn't respect our way of life. It brought us the War on Terror and it didn't make it any easier for us to progress into the future with comfort and security.
Our legislators faltered because they seemed to ignore the fact that what makes good politics doesn't always make good policy. And they didn't want to tackle the more complex issues that really affect safety in people's lives. It was easier to throw increasingly illiberal sound bites at a shadowy and fearsome enemy. >>> Ken Macdonald | Monday, February 23, 2009
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