Damping Down the Great Unwashed

Thanks presumably to the recent improvement in the economic situation, the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club has put in a request for some new toys. Water cannon, which are frequently deployed on the Continent, have been used in the UK only against the uppity colonials of Northern Ireland; but since London's relatively narrow streets would make them inefficient, indiscriminate and vulnerable to unauthorised removal, the Met and the London Haystack are bubbling over with enthusiasm. The Home Secretary has refused to release public funds for the purchase, doubtless because she needs the money for more essential matters; but it looks as if the London Haystack is prepared to buy the weapons himself, as a bit of Dickensian largesse to stand with his famous transformation of London's bus and cable car services. There will be the usual token "public engagement process", consisting of a few letters in the London Evening Bozza and some helpful reminders of the riots of 2011, which clearly would never have happened if the Metropolitan Firearms and Headbangers' Club had been properly equipped at the time. According to the Club chairman, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howitzer, the water cannon will be "rarely used and rarely seen", and according to the London Haystack's office they will be used only when "the most extreme circumstances" are suspected to be more or less possibly imminent and there aren't enough dum-dum bullets to cope.