Rioting Widens in London and Spreads Elsewhere

By RAVI SOMAIYA, JOHN F. BURNS and ALAN COWELL
NYT

LONDON — Prime Minister David Cameron said Tuesday that Parliament would be recalled and police numbers would more than double after a third night of rioting and looting spread across and beyond London in what the police called the worst unrest in memory.

Mr. Cameron spoke after cutting short a vacation in Tuscany to return home as violence convulsed at least eight new districts in the metropolitan area and broke out for the first time in Britain’s second-largest city, Birmingham, and elsewhere.

Speaking outside his office and residence at 10 Downing Street, Mr. Cameron said lawmakers would be called back from their summer recess for one day on Thursday and the number of police on the streets would be increased to 16,000 on Wednesday night from 6,000 on Tuesday. He said the authorities would “do everything necessary to restore order to Britain’s streets.”

“This is criminality pure and simple and it has to be confronted and defeated,” Mr. Cameron said. He said the violence had produced “sickening scenes” and that the country needed “even more robust police action” to confront the unrest. There would be “many more arrests in the days to come,” he said.

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