Britons say Cameron failed to provide leadership on riots

More than half of Britons think Prime Minister David Cameron failed to provide leadership early enough to control riots that erupted in London and spread to other cities, a survey showed on Friday.

The results of the ComRes poll for The Independent newspaper chimed with those of an ICM survey for The Guardian, in which only 30 percent said Cameron responded well to the riots while 44 percent thought the opposite.

The ComRes survey also found that only 36 percent have confidence in Cameron's leadership of Britain in general. A different poll by Reuters/Ipsos MORI on July 20 said only 38 percent were happy with the way he was doing his job.

Fifty-four percent said Cameron, who did not return from holiday until the riots reached their peak on Monday, had failed to provide leadership early enough.

Five people were killed during four nights of looting, arson and violence.

Half of those polled also said they had less confidence in London's ability to hold safe Olympics next year, while a third had not changed their mind.

Cameron has called the initial police response to the riots, which were triggered after a man was shot dead by police on Saturday in north London, inadequate. His remarks drew a sharp response from the police, which is facing deep cuts in numbers as part of a government austerity drive to cut public debt.

In a sign of possible damage to London's reputation, a German member of parliament said on Friday that Olympic officials should consider moving the 2012 Olympics from London if the riots and looting were to continue.

Games organisers and the International Olympic Committee have insisted the violence would neither affect preparations for the Games nor the city's image.

The riots have also dented confidence of some leading businessmen. According to a separate ComRes survey for The Independent, 9 percent said they would reduce investment in London over the next year, although 90 percent had made no changes to their investment plans.

ComRes conducted an online survey of 2,008 British adults between Wednesday and Thursday. Data were weighted to be demographically representative of all British adults.

For the business poll, 150 London business leaders were questioned online between Tuesday and Thursday.

Cameron became prime minister in May 2010 at the head of a coalition government led by his Conservative Party.

 

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Brothers Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir, 32 and 30, and Haroon Jahan, 19, were part of a group of Asian men who were hit by a car while attempting to protect their area from looters in Birmingham.

"I'm proud of the community that just shook my hand. I'm proud of the people that are here today, standing in support with me and my friend Mr Ghazanfar Ali here. But I hope the youngsters listen to the elder community and go back to the way we were all living together," Jahan's father Tarik said.
Police have launched a murder inquiry after all three Muslim men died from their injuries.
Several men have since been arrested.

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Posted in: 19,32 and 30,and Haroon Jahan,Brothers Shazad Ali and Abdul Musavir,were part of a group of Asian men who were hit by a car while attempting to protect their area from looters in Birmingham.

18-year-old ambassador appears at Westminster magistrates court after allegedly hurling bricks at police car in Enfield

An Olympics ambassador allegedly hurled bricks at a police car in a frenzied attack during the London riots that forced officers to flee.

Chelsea Ives, 18, also took part in attacks on mobile phone stores in Enfield, north London, on Sunday night, Westminster magistrates court heard.

Ives, who has met London mayor Boris Johnson and London Olympics chief Sebastian Coe and visited the House of Commons, was reported to the police by her mother Adrienne, who said she saw her throwing bricks at a police car on a BBC news report.

The teenager, whose lawyer described her as a "talented sportswoman", boasted that she was having "the best day ever", the court heard.

Prosecutor Becky Owen said Ives had led an attack on a Vodafone store. "She was first to pick up masonry and hurl it at the window," she told the court. The court also heard Ives took part in an attack on Phones4U.

Ives denied two counts of burglary, violent disorder and attacking a police car. She was refused bail until 17 August, when she will appear at Highbury Corner magistrates court.

Adrienne Ives said calling the police about her daughter was "gut-wrenching".

She told the Evening Standard: "I had to do what was right. Roger [her husband] and I were watching the news and it was absolutely sickening. And then we saw our daughter among the crowds."

 

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Police station fire bombed as violence erupts for fourth night in UK

Police in the central England city of Nottingham say a group of 30 to 40 men fire bombed a police station as violent rioting which has swept Britain for four days reached another part of the country.

Nottinghamshire Police said that a police station in the Canning Circus area of the city’s centre has come under attack, but that there are no reports of injures. Several men were arrested at the scene.

 

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Riots spread north as capital cools

Rioting and looting has spread to Manchester and the Midlands from London with plans to prevent a fourth night of violence on the streets of the capital appearing to have worked.

Prime Minister David Cameron flew back from his holiday early to join police chiefs in warning rioters they would face the full weight of the law. He chaired a meeting of the Government's emergency Cobra committee, with another due to take place at 9am on Wednesday.

Businesses and shops across the capital shut down early in a bid to avoid attack from the gangs of youths who have ransacked buildings across the city over the previous days.

The Metropolitan Police flooded the streets with officers - nearly three times as many as were on duty last night - to quash concerns they were losing control of parts of London.

Some 30 other forces lent officers to bolster the numbers for a massive policing operation intended to put a stop to the horrific scenes witnessed across the country since Saturday.

The situation appeared relatively calm in London, with a handful of arrests reported in the Canning Town area.

In Manchester however, rioters set fire to a branch of fashion store Miss Selfridge in the city centre. Hundreds of youths rampaged on the streets, leading to running battles with riot police.

Greater Manchester Police said it was engaged in outbreaks of disorder in both Manchester city centre and Salford. Assistant Chief Constable Terry Sweeney vowed: "We will not allow such mindless criminal damage and wanton violence to go unpunished."

In Salford Shopping City, a Bargain Booze off-licence was targeted and windows of a branch of the Money Shop smashed.

Elsewhere in England, West Midlands Police said they were dealing with sporadic disorder in Wolverhampton and the arson of two vehicles in nearby West Bromwich.

 

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Olympic host city under scrutiny amid London riots

few miles from the worst violence to hit the city in 25 years, beach volleyball players dived headlong in the sand, the most summery of Olympic sports on display less than a year before the London Games.
The matches were played under the shadow of the London Eye big wheel, and not far from Buckingham Palace and No. 10 Downing Street. Yet no historic backdrop could block the images of rioting and looting that have swept the city the past three days and left a mark on British sports.
The soccer game between England and the Netherlands at Wembley was the biggest casualty. And as IOC officials arrived to review progress leading to the 2012 Games, they were greeted by a forbidding landscape a short way from where the Olympics will unfold.
Plumes of smoke rose from run-down neighborhoods. Businesses closed early — many of them boarded up — as authorities struggled to contain the country's worst unrest since race riots set London ablaze in the 1980s.
It was hardly the image Britain hoped to present to the world. This was a time when fans should have been reveling in the expectation of a successful Olympics and the start of English soccer season.
Instead, athletes fielded calls from worried relatives watching TV footage of burning buildings and vehicles. Officials tried to downplay the impact of the violence that began Saturday night in the Tottenham area of north London following the fatal shooting of a local man by police.
"My friends and family have been calling," Canadian beach volleyball player Heather Bansley said. "They keep checking in to make sure we're OK. It's not a great thing to be happening to London."
The disorder comes less than two weeks after London celebrated with great fanfare the one-year countdown to the opening of the games on July 27, 2012.
On Monday, the violence spread to Hackney, one the boroughs encompassing the Olympic Park in east London. The unrest took place about four miles from the park, site of the main Olympic Stadium and other key venues.
Prime Minister David Cameron and London Mayor Boris Johnson cut short their vacations to head back to the capital as organizers defended security planning and pressed ahead with preparations for the world's biggest sports festival.
"We have a commitment to deliver a safe and secure games and we will do so," Olympics Minister Hugh Robertson said. "All the evidence shows this trouble is low-level criminality driven by messages on social networks and not some new, emerging security threat."
More than 500 people have been arrested in London and more than 100 charged so far.
With police needed elsewhere, Wembley Stadium was deemed not safe enough to host Wednesday's soccer game. With 70,000 tickets sold for the visit of a Dutch team that reached last year's World Cup final, the Football Association will take a financial hit because of ticket refunds.
Tuesday's game between Ghana and Nigeria in neutral Watford, 20 miles northwest of London, was also called off. The Premier League said it was still talking with police before deciding whether this weekend's season-opening matches at Tottenham, Fulham and Queen's Park Rangers could proceed. Two domestic cup games set for Tuesday also were abandoned.
Tottenham was the scene of the shooting that sparked the initial violence and one of the areas hardest hit by riots. One of the ticket offices at the north London club's stadium was closed because of damage.
With the mayhem spreading outside London, dozens of people attacked shops in Birmingham's main retail district. England's cricketers were warned to stay in the team hotel after dark as they prepared for their match against India on Wednesday. Rival captains Andrew Strauss and Mahendra Singh Dhoni supported the decision to play.
"This is an opportunity for cricket to maybe put a feel-good factor back into the newspapers and show that not everything's bad out there at the moment," Strauss said.
But, for now, it's the outlying areas of London such as Hackney that are suffering.
Amid the tourist haunts of historic central London, only the rock music pumping from the speaker system drowned out the polite applause of spectators at a temporary beach volleyball court made up of 2,274 tons of imported sand.
About half the seats at the sold-out event went unfilled. And because of worries that night would bring renewed violence, officials wrapped up the opening day almost three hours early so fans, staff and volunteers could get home before dark.
FIVB Beach Volleyball Director Angelo Squeo, who was on site during the Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Atlanta Games, said he consulted with high-ranking London Olympic organizers and police before making the decision.
"I will do whatever in order to not put in danger — not even risk putting in danger — anybody here," Squeo told The Associated Press. "In Atlanta, we had the bomb and I was left with 11,000 people outside the venue and I did not know if I had the green light or red light."
Brittany Hochevar hopes to qualify for the U.S. volleyball team and return next year for the Olympics. Her sport will be played on a site that hosted jousting tournaments during the reign of Henry VIII.
"When you're a competitor and you're a warrior, when you know that competitions have taken place here for generations and generations, it gives me goose bumps — it really does," '' Hochevar told the AP. "I said my prayers last night. Now, I have a vision of what it could be like getting back here in 2012 in all it's glory."
But is she concerned for her safety?
"Not really, I live in L.A.," Hochevar said. "It's nothing I haven't seen myself."
Other scheduled test events this week include a cycling road race that will go through the streets of London on Sunday and a marathon swimming competition at Hyde Park on Saturday. The world badminton championship are taking place at the Olympic venue of Wembley Arena in north London.
"I don't feel I know enough about the riots and how close they are to us," said Jens Grill, who is in charge of the British badminton team. "But last night we walked back together and the players walked back in groups just to be on the safe side."

 

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