Londoners' verdicts on the riots
New Ipsos polling for BBC London's Inside Out explores Londoners' verdicts on the Metropolitan Police's handling of the riots, how Londoners think the Police should handle any future riots, and what role activities for young Londoners could play in preventing future disturbances.
New Ipsos polling for BBC London’s Inside Out finds Londoners saying the Metropolitan Police generally do a good job, but less positive about Met handling of the riots. In the event of future riots, there is broad confidence that the Met could protect Londoners but some support for the Met to take a more robust approach.
Ratings of the Met
It seems that the riots have had little effect on how Londoners view the Police overall. Three-quarters (77%) think the Met is generally doing a good job– broadly unchanged from when we last asked this for BBC London in February 2006. Opinion is a little more mixed on the Met’s handling of the riots but over half (56%) still think they did a good job.
Looking to the future, three-quarters (74%) are confident that the Met can protect the public if there are future riots.
Future riots
Views are split on whether the Police should be able to block social networks during riots – half of Londoners agree that it should be allowed (55%). When asked a different way about the same issue, a similar proportion say that blocking such sites should not be allowed in Britain (47%).
NB This question was split-sampled: 501 respondents were asked whether the Police should be able to block social networks and 500 were asked whether they thought blocking social networks shouldn’t be allowed in Britain
Twice as many Londoners think local people should be able to use physical violence to protect properties and communities in future riots (62%) as say they shouldn’t (31%).
There’s support among Londoners for police use of curfews and water cannon in future riots (78% say curfews should be use, while 72% say water cannon should be used). But opinion is split evenly on tear gas (50% say it should be used, while 46% should it shouldn’t. Most Londoners (57%) think rubber bullets should not be used.
National Citizens’ Service and youth services in London
Londoners are split on whether the new National Citizens Service should be voluntary or compulsory. Half of Londoners (47%) say National Citizens’ Service should be compulsory and two in five (40%) say it should be voluntary. Only 9% say it should not be set up at all.
Just over half of Londoners (55%) say that spending more on youth services would make future riots less likely but a sizeable minority (40%) say it would make no difference.
Police spending cuts
Among Londoners, the Police are the third most frequently mentioned area for ring-fencing from spending cuts – behind the NHS and schools and roughly level with care for the elderly.
Technical Details
Ipsos interviewed a representative sample of 1,001 adults aged 16+ across London.
Interviews were conducted by telephone 23rd -25th September 2011. Data are weighted to match the profile of the London population.
More insights about Public Sector
