Belgian police using type of water cannon purchased by Metropolitan Police, during a demonstration in Brussels in March 2011 (S
News that the Home Secretary has apparently blocked the use of water cannon already purchased by Boris Johnson was described as a humiliation and a waste of public money. So is it all the fault of London's Mayor and how exactly did the Metropolitan Police end up in the position of owning three riot control vehicles that are apparently unusable?
After the London riots in 2011, senior commanders at the Met, a force whose public order reputation had been severely damaged by the death of newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson and the violence towards anti-G20 protesters in 2009, suddenly found themselves in a position to ask for almost anything from populist politicians: and they knew it. It is little wonder, then, that the Met's 2012 strategic review of the riots, entitled Four Days in August, insisted that “events have prompted the need... to explore new ways of responding to fast-moving disorder” and, among other 'robust' tactics, concluded that “water cannons would be valuable in a few rare situations”. Examples it offered “in recent history” included “the Countryside Alliance demonstrations in Parliament Square (2004), the Gaza demonstrations against The Israeli Embassy (2008/9) and potentially the student protests of 2010 where specific locations were targeted”.
