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Public Disorder

The right hon. Lady speaks with all the authority of a former Policing Minister who knows this issue well and, I know, discussed it with the chief constable of Greater Manchester. Clearly, what happened in Salford was unacceptable, and tragically it reversed very many good years of excellent work, breaking up gangs and taking on organised criminals, and I suspect that what happened is that those gangs and criminals saw it as an opportunity to reassert themselves. All those lessons must be learned, and I know that the Greater Manchester police chief, to whom I too have spoken, wants to learn those lessons. It is not right ever to cede control of our streets to hooligans, which is what happened briefly in Salford, but we have to rest with the operational judgment of police chiefs when they are on the streets, and the time to learn the lessons is now.