Sifting through the rubble from the riots

Not many folk are aware of it, but there is an official riots inquiry and it has delivered its interim report today. Its conclusions are pretty clichéd and not really worth studying; David Lammy’s book is infinitely more instructive and readable. But it does produce a few figures about the rioters — or, I should say, those arrested mainly because they didn’t think to cover their face. I looked at this for my Telegraph column last week. Here’s my summary of today’s report:
 
1. Broken Britain. Some 46 per cent of those arrested live in the lowest ‘decile’. These guys are not working class, but welfare class. Abandoned by politicians because they have no chance of nudging over the supposed ‘poverty threshold’ and they tend not to vote either. An analysis by Experian, a credit rating agency, suggests 71 per cent of the riots occurred in the worst 10 per cent areas for social cohesion.