Editorial in the Independent: Britain Has Experienced its Katrina Moment

Britain has been plunged into an urban nightmare. Parts of some of our largest cities, London in particular, have witnessed a terrifying breakdown of law and order. Shops have been smashed and looted. Properties have been vandalised. Families have been burned out of their homes. Cars have been set on fire. Running battles have been fought between gangs of youths and riot police. For days the capital has been awash with trepidation.

The political ramifications will be profound. This is beginning to look like the Government's Hurricane Katrina. George Bush's Republican administration looked clueless when the levees broke in 2005, engulfing the city of New Orleans. The same can be said of the Coalition since the violence first flared at the weekend. The impression left by Theresa May yesterday, where the Home Secretary surreally implored listeners of the BBC's Today programme to report rioters, was of anything but grip. David Cameron returned from holiday yesterday in response to the crisis, but his attempts to project authority were scarcely any more convincing.

Yet the Katrina analogy is appropriate in a more profound way. This is a Katrina moment for the political classes in general and indeed for the entire country. Just as the US government failed to shore up the levees above the city of New Orleans when it had a chance, successive British administrations have failed to repair the social levees that ought to protect our society from this kind of aggression. At the weekend, those levees burst, and we have been witnessing the ugly results...