Rioting spreading through London & to other English cities.

Prime Minister David Cameron is returning early from his summer holiday to deal with the continuing riots in London.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said Mr Cameron was flying back from Italy overnight to chair the government's Cobra emergency committee.

London Mayor Boris Johnson has also cut short his family holiday and will be back Tuesday lunchtime.

It comes amid a third night of violence and looting across the city.

The BBC's Andrew Neil, writing on Twitter, said the riots were the prime minister's "first real crisis", adding "now we will find out if Mr Cameron is composed of the stuff of leadership".

Labour leader Ed Miliband is returning early from his holiday in Devon because of the riots.

London riots: Timeline and map of violence



People have been left homeless after a night of riots on the streets of Tottenham. Buildings were set alight and shops looted after a peaceful demonstration turned violent. Looting spread to other areas on Sunday. Here is a timeline of what happened.

Thursday 4 August:

18:15 BST - Mark Duggan, 29, is shot dead by police at Ferry Lane, Tottenham.

The death occurs during an operation where specialist firearm officers and officers from Operation Trident, the unit which deals with gun crime in the African and Caribbean communities, are attempting to carry out an arrest.

Mr Duggan is a passenger in a minicab and is shot after an apparent exchange of fire. A police officer's radio is later found to have a bullet lodged in it.

The Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) announces it will investigate the incident and later says it believes two shots were fired by police. It also confirms that an illegal firearm was recovered from the scene. ....<cont>

It does sound very frightening.

Three days now seem to be quite long, I think. I do hope, they'll find the some tactics how to end this mess.

But actually and unfortunately, it has happened elsewhere (in other countries) before. With very similar reasons.

We, we 'normal' people, are surprised about the extent of "copycat" crimes (here: riots).
That happened before as well - only on a very smaller level - not by spreading the word via mobiles but just by mouth. (My own experiences from my time as probation officer and social worker with the police.)

Three days now seem to be quite long, I think. I do hope, they'll find the some tactics how to end this mess.

The Metropolitan police's embattled public order unit, CO11, once prided itself on being the world leader in containing disorder. At 3am yesterday, its exhausted officers slept in police vans lined up in Enfield town centre, bruised, exhausted and, for the second night running, entirely out-manoeuvred.

For hours they had been chasing groups of youths around Enfield, Ponders End and Edmonton, in north London, using dogs and batons to disperse anyone seen looting shops.

Any doubt that police were unable to control the violence was dispelled hours later, around 5pm yesterday, amid further outbreaks of looting in Hackney and other areas of the capital in broad daylight.

The home secretary, Theresa May, who flew home from holiday to deal with the fallout from the riots, will have asked commanders of the UK's largest police force: how did you lose control of London?

For the third day running, CO11's territorial support group (TSG), nicknamed the "Muscle of the Met", suffered the humiliation of requiring support from colleagues in neighbouring forces
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Dr Michael Rosie, a senior lecturer in sociology at the University of Edinburgh, said: "A key lesson to be learned, as in all such instances, is that communication is fundamental. Police seemed taken by surprise by the rapid escalation in Tottenham – that suggests that they need to be more proactive in talking to, liaising with, the community."

It was a bit scary yesterday. While driving to an errand in my car a typical british yob screamed at me "how come you paki is driving a nice car" ...

Rioting was happening just 2 miles away from where I live and it was not pleasant.

I am so glad to be leaving.

By which you'd mean (in my own words) "ghettos of unemployed young people whose futures hold little hope or opportunity for them", Walter?
I don't want to put words into your mouth, so I'd be very interested to hear more about your perception of the "very similar reasons".

they just showed a video of an injured man who had fallen on the street, bleeding and dazed...

a black fella went to help him up which genuinely appears as tho it was to assist him - a large white fella then went into the backpack that the injured man was actually wearing on his back, calmly unzipped it and took out the contents - discarding what he didn't want and took the rest