Smoke still pouring out over SW London, and sirens everywhere. Does suggest some kind of media blackout; blanket coverage has turned to almost silence within a few hours, and friends are saying that the noise is horrendous across other parts of the city.
Where in SW London? I've been in more or less continuous contact with friends for the last six hours or so in Tooting, Wimbledon, Putney, Kingston-upon-Thames, Surbiton, Twickenham, Feltham and Hounslow (as well as those in other parts of the capital such as Epping, Crystal Palace, Norwood, Croydon and Ealing), and I myself am in Richmond-upon-Thames, and the story in all of these cases is pretty much the same: a considerable police presence, with occasional sirens blaring past, but nothing really happening. Reinforcements appear to have been brought in to problem areas where things appear to be reaching a flashpoint... but it's not fair to assume that that's happening because the situation is escalating out of control - in many situations that I've seen and heard of, police numbers have been boosted as a result of specific police intelligence, or tweets, Facebook and BBM messages sent to the Met by the public, as a preventative and deterrent measure, rather than being too litttle too late.
Have a look at hashtags #londonriots #hounslow for an example of how wrong Twitter has been in communicating the seriousness of an apparent situation. For hours on end, Twitter was awash with claims that BBM had been flooded with calls to congregate at Hounslow Bus Garage from 2200. Nothing materialised, yet people were still then tweeting that Hounslow had been "hit", was "going down" etc. The worst event that I've been able to find any hint of was that at one point a bus shelter was on fire in Hounslow West; for those that aren't familiar with the local geography, Hounslow West is actually a seperate town centre to Hounslow - a couple of miles away from Hounslow town centre, and from Hounslow Bus Garage. Trying to connect this isolated event to a supposedly massive gathering of rioters over two miles away - which, by all reliable accounts, didn't happen - isn't just disingenous; it's delusional at best. In other words, nothing to see ehre.
Have a look too at #londonriots #kingston; Twitter was flooded with retweets of the same message for hours on end: "EVERYBODY MEET AT KINGSTON TRAIN STATION AT 8:30PM; GOING HARD TONIGHT!! #londonriots". Again, nothing materialised, and yet again, fools were tweeting that the Bentall Centre had been raided, that there were running battles in the high street etc.
And look also at #londonriots #putney; here, pictures were tweeted of boarded up buildings and shops towards Putney Bridge and on the Upper Richmond Road. These pictures were presented in a way that suggested destruction had already been wrought upon Putney, when in fact many if not most shops in Putney closed between 1500 and 1600, with many stores choosing to remove stock and non-essential equipment, and a number of other premises including the Post Office and Halfords chose to board up their windows and doors.
Tonight, along the South Circular and Lower Mortlake Road there have been police cars and ambulances circulating periodically, but in no greater volumes than one would expect on an ordinary week night.
There have been sporadic pockets of violence and tensions in some parts of London. In Enfield, Guardian journalist Paul Lewis observed a 'vigilante crowd' which had been amassed using social networks; the aim was to gather a large group of local people together to stand their ground in case of further attacks. Despite Twitter blowing this gathering out of proportion - and Chinese whispers again getting out of hand, describing huge battles between rioters and hundreds of vigilantes - Paul Lewis explained that there were less than 100 local 'vigilantes' and they dealt swiftly with the very small and limited numbers of young people thinking they could have a go.
In Eltham, in south east London, there were some scenes of clashes between rioters, police and local vigilante groups, but these images received considerable playout on the news channels, so it can hardly be said that they've been silenced.
The biggest problem here is not merely the spreading of misinformation, but the fact that as people read tales of how bad things are getting out there, and share them with their friends, it breeds a state of greater fear, and the lack of any corroborating evidence to support the claims of friends (sources which people of course inherently trust) on the news channels or news websites leads people to believe that there's a media blackout, or a conspiracy, or a wilful misrepresentation of important events to silence the voices that are trying to be heard etc.
And thus, even though Argos wasn't looted in Hounslow, and Asda's Hounslow store didn't burn down, because the information was shared between trusted sources - from friend to friend - people believe that it did, and they get frustrated when they don't see this news being shared with the world on Sky News, or when they don't hear about it on 5 Live, or when they don't read about it in the newspapers.
I haven't seen or heard anything from anyone anywhere that suggests that southwest London is in anything like the state that some people would apparently like to believe it is. If there is real evidence to support these claims that SW London is perishing in flames or is drowning in a sea of sirens, then I suggest you get it on Twitter or share it here for us all to see.
But I have a fairly decent vantage point where I am across a lot of southwest London; I have a clear line of sight towards Heston in the west, and Wembley towards the northwest; Sheen, Mortlake and Putney are just down the road, and towards Kingston and Roehampton across Richmond Park to the south. At this time of night, one can ordinarily hear the noise of a passing night bus cutting through the extreme quiet of suburbia, with the roar of its engine audible for a good 60-90 seconds, depending on fast it approaches and whether or not it stops at nearby traffic signals or bus stops. ,A police or ambulance siren can often be heard for 40-50 seconds from its most distant origin to the point at which it passes closest, and then heads off into the distance, and you can bet your butt that the sound of an emergency siren hacks through the silent midnight air in a way that makes it noticeable to all but the dead. To put it simply, from where I am, sound travels incredibly well from some distance around, thanks in no small part to the geography of the area, and my elevated vantage point. Sticking my head out of the window now, there's almost complete silence. No sirens, no thugs rampaging, no crashing of glass, no stench of smoke in the air, no fires visible in the distance within my lines of sight.
If the situation were as dire as you make out, I'd expect to hear, see or smell SOMETHING to indicate that things are amiss - but if I didn't know that there had been riots across London over the past few nights, I'd have no reason whatsoever to believe that tonight was no different to any other night in this part of town, and for miles around.
I'm frankly getting rather bored of seeing just how excited some people get at the idea that these scenes are getting close to their doorsteps, and manufacturing stories in the apparent hope that these prophecies will fulfil themselves - and we're now way past the point where people should shut the fu.ck up unless they've actually got something concrete and irrefutable to contribute, instead of passing on heresay with no basis in fact whatsoever, in the hope that they'll scare others.
The story tonight in London is that things are much, much, MUCH quieter than they were last night; while in numerous other UK cities, the story is a good deal worse. The story therefore has to move on. It's not a conspiracy, it's not a cover-up, it's not a case of big problems being ignored by the media. There's simply not enough to report here in London while things are much more serious in Manchester, Liverpool and Nottingham tonight.