The great discovery of the past few days has been this: If the police are visible on the streets, if wrongdoers are swiftly arrested, rapidly charged, prosecuted and quickly and frighteningly punished, then you can get a grip on crime and disorder.
The shrivelling of the supposed riots had nothing to do with pious assemblies of pro-migration demonstrators idiotically clutching identical placards run off by the Socialist Worker printshop. What made the difference was a real fear of being caught and fear of retribution, among the tiny criminal minority who normally get a free run in this country.
We can all be grateful to the police for doing what we actually pay them for, for once. Alas, Sir Keir Starmer and his Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, will never draw the right lessons from this. They are a clueless mixture. They like authoritarian rule over the law-abiding, but they won’t protect the public against thieves, vandals and drunken or drugged louts. Peter Hitchens.
Officers tackle a far-Right rioter in Southampton on Wednesday. We can all be grateful to the police for doing what we actually pay them for, for once
