BBC: "This could have been so much worse,” a Downing Street adviser tells me. “People were trying to set fire to a hotel with people inside.”
But the prime minister, they insist, is “focussed” - and after a career spent largely in the criminal justice system “knows which levers to pull”.
Sir Keir Starmer was the chief prosecutor of England and Wales during the last major outbreak of civil unrest in the UK in 2011, overseeing the prosecution of thousands of people involved in five days of rioting.
Rapid and well-publicised action by the courts was key in bringing the unrest to an end, he said then. And this time ministers have emphasised “strong policing and swift prosecutions” to deter others joining the violence.
How best to get that message across to the public has been a regular discussion at emergency COBR (Cabinet Office Briefing Room) meetings.
Just as government scientists were front and centre in the pandemic, police chiefs and prosecutors have been wheeled out to land core messages with authority in this crisis.
Stephen Parkinson, the otherwise low-profile Director of Public Prosecutions, was put before the cameras. Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley made regular appearances.
Yet the prime minister and his aides have pointedly avoided answering questions about the underlying causes of the riots. » | Joe Pike, Political correspondent | Sunday, August 11, 2024
