the guy had allegedly shot at police officers but there is a lot of controversy about it.
it may have been the shooting that set off the rioting but I think it says a lot about the state of the UK just now, government cuts have hit a lot of people hard and clearly people have had enough and thats probably why it's spread throughout England as far as Manchester and Liverpool last night.
The main concern of the BBC and some politicians last night seemed to be the "bad impression" that it was giving of London with the upcoming Olympics next year. The only thing in my opinion that the Olympics has to do with it is that if the government hadn't overcommitted themselves financially with the Olympic bid perhaps there wouldn't be riots and they could have spent money on public services instead of the widespread cuts (including the police force who have been seriously stretched by this with some officers having only had an hour or two to sleep in the past 48 hours).
London's former mayor Ken Livingstone said in a report that he believed this was happening because the government was "out of touch", it was refreshing to hear a politician talk some sense for a change instead of the normal spin.
Its a bit strange for me to watch this happen I must say having only recently moved abroad from the UK especially when I'm seeing twitter/facebook updates from friends who live in these areas. Thankfully none of them have been involved but some are close enough to hear the sirens and smell the smoke!
Hopefully the British government will pull their heads out of their backsides and start addressing some of the underlying issues before things get any worse.
Edit: I just got this link to a Londoner's blog from a friend, makes an interesting read
http://pennyred.blogspot.com/2011/08/panic-on-streets-of-london.html
