… many of those involved said they felt like they were participating in explicitly anti-police riots. They cited "policing" as the most significant cause of the riots, and anger over the police shooting of Mark Duggan, which triggered initial disturbances in Tottenham, was repeatedly mentioned – even outside London.

The report notes that 73% of those interviewed have been subject in the last 12 months to “Stop and Search” – a controversial anti-terrorist law which gives police powers to stop people without suspicion. Interviewees from Muslim and black communities expressed “deep frustration” at the way people in their communities were targeted. Against a backdrop of high youth unemployment and cuts, the report also notes that:

Many rioters conceded that their involvement in looting was simply down to opportunism, saying that a perceived suspension of normal rules presented them with an opportunity to acquire goods and luxury items they could not ordinarily afford. They often described the riots as a chance to obtain "free stuff" or sought to justify the theft.

Magistrates, meanwhile have controversially been allowed to disregard sentencing guidelines when punishing rioters. One 23-year-old student “was jailed for six months for stealing £3.50 worth of water bottles from a supermarket”.

For a supposed progressive, observes one Guardian writer, Cameron is now sounding worryingly Thatcherite: "cold, cynical and occasionally quite odd". Critics of Margaret Thatcher's reaction to the Brixton riots in 1981 described her "inability to strike the right note when a broader sense of social understanding was required". We might say the same of Cameron today.

In Birmingham, meanwhile, continues the Telegraph, the father of a man killed defending property in the riots called for calm. “Blacks, Asians, whites -- we all live in the same community,” Tariq Jahan said. “Why do we have to kill one another? Step forward if you want to lose your sons. Otherwise, go home.” 

The rioters “are not protesters,” runs the paper’s editorial, “they are looters, vandals and thieves.” Social lessons can wait: right now we need “the restoration of order to our streets”. But that’s just what the Turks, Poles, Kurds and Sikhs who resisted rioters around Britain have been doing, notes one commentator. Britain’s immigrants “have shown themselves to be not just as law-abiding as the Anglo-Saxons, but far more inspiring.”