Cameron under huge pressure

Azim Mohamed, (L) the owner of a cutlery hire company, and assistant Riaz Mohamed, look at the charred remains of their business yesterday, after it was set ablaze following disturbances in north London early Wednesday morning. Photo: AFP

Prime Minister David Cameron has stepped up his response to riots sweeping Britain as he struggles to contain the unprecedented violence, which critics say is partly due to his government's spending cuts.
Cameron cut short his holiday to Italy to return home on Tuesday, promptly ordering 10,000 more police on to the streets of London where looters and arsonists ran riot largely unchallenged for three consecutive nights.
The action calmed the capital's streets on Tuesday night, but fresh violence broke out in the major cities of Manchester and Birmingham.
Parliament will return from its summer break today for an extraordinary one-day session on the crisis, when Cameron must show he is in control in the face of public outrage at the worst civil unrest since the 1980s.
Some left-wing commentators are referring to this as the prime minister's "Katrina moment", similar to when the failings of President George W. Bush's administration were exposed by the damage wrought by a hurricane in New Orleans in 2005.
Cameron has been under fire within his Conservative party for not being tough enough, and he hit back yesterday by announcing that police will now be able to use water cannon, which have never before been deployed in mainland Britain.
Ramping up his rhetoric yesterday, he strongly condemned the violence, saying it was the result of a lack of responsibility and morals among young people, fuelled by a welfare system that "rewards idleness".
He left no room for claims that the riots were happening because youngsters are marginalised by unemployment, poverty and lack of opportunity, nor that they could be linked to his Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition's public spending cuts.
Ed Miliband, the leader of the opposition Labour party, has not sought to make political capital out of the riots, saying there are "no excuses", but other members of his party have been more forthright.