Anarchy in the U.K.

Looting, burning ... London shows Vancouver how to riot like you mean it.

A fiery weekend in London has led to more than 160 arrests due to some of the worst rioting the city has seen in decades. With less than a year to go before the 2012 Olympic Games in London, authorities are scrambling to maintain calm in the city's north end after cop cars, a double-decker bus, shops, and more were set alight after “certain elements” hijacked a peaceful protest over a fatal police shooting in Tottenham, police allege. The rioting and looting was mostly confined to working-class neighbourhoods such as Edmonton and Brixton, but, thanks to Britain's ever-encroaching police state, most of the criminal activity has been caught on CCTV, which has proven essential in identifying the 160 or so people arrested already. While the damage may be more widespread this time around, Tottenham's last major riots, in 1995, resulted in a police officer getting hacked to death with a machete, so ... things could be worse, we guess?