UK riots: Mindless violence or a cry of rage?

LONDON: The torched skeletons of burnt-out buildings, a red double-decker bus in flames and looters forming orderly queues to pile TV plasma screens into their trollies – the images of the
2011 London riots tell their own story.

With less than a year to go until London plays host to the 2012 Olympics, and the police in turmoil following recent top-level resignations, these were the last pictures anyone in authority would have wished to see.

But while the images are compelling, easy answers about what lies behind the seemingly sudden eruption of angry, and uninhibited, violence in the British capital, are harder to find.