I'd also be interested to hear how people honestly felt about the riots in Brixton in 1981 and the Poll Tax riots? Oh, and various assorted May Day Altercations. Maybe some of you were there.
1981 - Check
Poll Tax - Check
May Day - Check
The problem is that you are comparing chalk and cheese.
The student demos (inc 26th March), The Poll Tax riots (to an extent) and May Day demos are all politically motivated actions with forethought and planning.
The Brixton Riots (the whole series inc Toxteth etc) and those of the last few days are a different beast entirely. Yes there is a political spark point, but after that it is plain criminal violence accompanied by mob mentality.
The atmosphere is different; it is far more feral (my word of the week), infinitely more dangerous and completely out of control.
Last night I was doing my job, and for the first time I was scared - I certainly haven't felt that at a demo before. Admittedly it was partially my own fault. I wanted pictures of an area that wasn't already media saturated, so myself and a friend (also ex Army) went into Peckham in advance of the Police deployment. I know S. London very very well, and I know what areas like this are capable of (I lived on the dodgy side of Camberwell for quite some time) and despite that it still shook me.
As has been pointed out in the media (and on here) the guys kicking off didn't give two hoots about whether their faces were masked or not - it simply didn't matter to them. It was outright break down of law and order, and the scariest part of it was the breadth and width that it was spread across London. Previous riots have been centralised and containable; these were not, and it is that point that is the most worrying.
I drove my mate home to Ilford at the end of the night and we passed through incident after incident. Walworth Rd (which hasn't really been reported on) was trashed from end to end and only two Police wagons were available to deploy - that story was repeated everywhere. There have been joking references elsewhere to Mad Max and The Warriors - that is
precisely what it felt like travelling through London.
I know of several agency photographer (Getty, AFP etc), one of whom is on here occasionally, who had to resort to using the mobile phone cameras, because it was just to dangerous to use proper kit; I might have done so myself, if my own one hadn't been snatched earlier in the evening.
The solution? No idea presently.
It isn't the Army because they just aren't scaled up to that role at the moment.
Personally I think that it is just a question of battening down the hatches until the heat passes over, and then finding a solution later.
Make no mistake, this could potentially be a very, very dangerous situation; because if it continues and some mental idiot manges to coordinate the subclasses (and I use that word objectively) then true insurrection is not outside the realms of possibility. With a rational head on, I don't think that will be the case, because it's just not in the nature of this country, but it is flash points such as these that have lead to revolutions in the past; think 1917 and 1792, both political revolts that were taken over by mob rule.
