I don't have a great deal to say about the London Riots, and next to nothing that hasn't been said already. But I'll throw my thoughts into the maelstrom of thoughts on these riots that is swirling incessantly out there anyway. There's a bandwagon, so feel free to witness my attempt to jump on it.

One of the reasons why I have so little to say about the riots is because this is a political blog but, as far as I can see, there is precious little that is political behind the violence that has broken out in London and, to a lesser degree, elsewhere. I hear about social deprivation and inequality, and about how the police gunned down a man who may or may not have been a gangster of some sort and who may or may not have shot one of them in a chest. Then I see images of a Greggs burning, I hear about a CarpetRight that has been torched, and I hear about trainers being stolen from a JD Sports that was looted during one of these riots. And I see that these events have precious little to do with politics and everything to do with an infectious, uncontrollable rage and a real lust for taking goods that haven't been paid for. Indeed, one of only two of the political dimensions I see to all this is that failure of the police, and the British state, to respond to those who have turned the poorer areas of the capital city into what is effectively a war zone. It is one thing to protest against the state, another to take to the streets and indulge in a self-perpetuating orgy of looting and mindless violence.

Furthermore, even when some of the rioters and looters are put on trial for their actions, what do we think will be the result? Does anyone seriously think that their claims that these were legitimate acts of protest will be taken seriously? And what do we think the long-term political reaction to these crimes will be? Do we honestly think that the state will use this as an opportunity to anything other than flex its muscles and expand its power and control over us? And as we hear that Facebook and BlackBerries have been useful tools in the co-ordination of these riots. So what do we think the government will do - leave us to use our BlackBerries and Facebook in peace? Or demand the right to intrude further with regard to both things? I know what I would put my money on, and this is the second political dimension to these events - there will be another encroachment on our freedom and our civil liberties.

And when will it stop? I don't know. I suspect that there is more violence to come. But I also suspect that these events have become embarrassing for the police and will become more so the more often they happen. So I suspect that the next time the riots start, the police are going to be more and more likely to seriously start cracking skulls. Then, at the next legitimate protest, the police will go in heavy handed, determined to take no chances and therefore to take no prisoners. They won't be able to take the risk of the repetition of that mindless violence, so they had to club that person to the ground and, while they are sorry that it ended in this way, that's why he had to die... and so on.

So all we have here is a largely self-indulgent outbreak of violence that will get Middle England tutting at the perpetrators and in doing so this violence will strengthen the state. And if the motivations of the rioters were genuinely political, then they would see that what has happened is, to a massive extent, a disaster for their cause. But they don't have a case, and, furthermore, I suspect that a substantial number of them will just be happy to have got themselves new acquisitions without having to go through the trouble of buying them.