In total, 1, 685 people have been arrested and 985 charged following the three days of rioting and looting in London.

BBC: London riots: Man arrested after two officers hit by car

Mr Blair said that, in relation to the rioting and looting, it was essential that the police felt they had the backing of the government.

BBC: Riots: Tony Blair warning over 'disaffected youth'

For opportunistic folks who used social media tools to find and jump into recent rioting and looting in London, those same tools could be used to nab them soon enough.

FORBES: Londoners Use Facebook, Tumblr, Flickr To 'Catch Rioters'

He added that politicians' responses to the four days of rioting and looting created a danger of the "wrong analysis leading to the wrong diagnosis, leading to the wrong prescription".

BBC: Riots: Tony Blair warning over 'disaffected youth'

There are some parallels between the rioting and looting seen in London by disaffected, angry youths, and the recent cyber attacks that online supporters of Anonymous have been carrying out this past year on everyone from PayPal to the FBI to (soon enough apparently) Facebook.

FORBES: Anonymous, London's Rioters And The Power Of Internet-Organized Insurgencies

Combining mapping with user-generated witness reports, Ushahidi, or "testimony, " tracked incidents of deaths, rioting, looting and rape, all sent in by concerned Kenyans.

CNN: Ory Okolloh, the pan-African blogger

It also raises questions about the psychology of looting and rioting which occur after most natural disasters.

FORBES: Crime in the Wake of Hurricane Irene

In the last 24 hours there have been disturbing reports of widespread looting and rioting in provincial towns, including Sfax.

BBC: Resurgence of revolt where Arab Spring began