National Post

Six times the usual number of police to patrol London’s streets Friday
British police prepared to flood the streets on Friday to ensure that weekend drinking does not reignite the rioting that swept London and other cities this week, shocking Britons and sullying their country’s image a year before it hosts the Olympics.

Steve Kavanagh, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said 16,000 officers, instead of the usual 2,500, would remain on duty in London in their biggest peacetime deployment — a measure of the perceived public order challenge.

Even in normal times, alcohol-fuelled street disorder is commonplace across urban Britain at the weekend. (Photo: Peter Nicholls/Reuters)