Several people know that I normally live in London and have asked me about the riots.
I am not there right now (in fact, I am North of the Polar Circle, in Sweden).
Thanks to those who care about me, it's really nice

Anyway, here is an extract from a paper (The Independent is a major British paper, one of the better according to me) which summarizes this.

It's not about race, any kind of organised political struggle etc. Just a symptom of "sickness" in a rather well-off country.

It's disturbing and it's a failure of the state and society --- The UK is a society without any religion, ideology or strong family bonds. Only one thing matters; money and consumption. Some people are excluded even from that because they have no money.

People have their heads filled with violent American TV dramas and films and play violent computer games where they are the villains, scoring points for causing damage. I think their perspective on reality is skewed. They don't even understand that they are ruining their own societies.

Quote Originally Posted by http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/leading-articles/leading-article-britain-has-experienced-its-katrina-moment-2334812.html
"We know enough about these riots and those perpetrating them to know what they are not. This is not a political protest. The rioters have no agenda. It is not centrally directed. The goal is acquisitive looting or brainless destruction. The original riot in Tottenham on Saturday seems to have been sparked by a community's sense of grievance against the police. But what happened in Woolwich, Toxteth and Bristol on Monday night is clearly not an anti-police protest. Much of it is copycat rioting. Criminal gangs and antisocial youths have seized on an opportunity to run amok, knowing that the police cannot be everywhere at once.

Nor is this a response to public-sector austerity. Reports of the Government's cuts might have added to the air of desperation in many poor communities. But the fact is that most cuts have not been implemented yet. This is not a riot driven by new media either. BlackBerrys and Twitter – neither of which existed during the inner-city civil disturbances of the 1980s – have doubtless played a role in fanning the flames. But new media is hardly a sufficient explanation for this antisocial spasm. This is also not a race riot, in the manner of Brixton, Toxteth, Handsworth or Broadwater Farm in the 1980s, either. The rioters of 2011 are racially mixed. And there is no overwhelming collective grievance against the police for racial harassment as there was three decades ago.

This disturbing phenomenon has to be understood as a conflagration of aggression from a socially and economically excluded underclass. A disaffected criminal fringe, made up of people who feel they have no stake in society, has decided to exert itself on the streets. Alienated young men and women, some of them barely more than children, have taken this as an opportunity to steal, riot, burn and to generally kick against authority."
The police summoned backup to London from across the country, and put so many policemen on the street that no rioting in London was possible on Tuesday. So instead it broke out in other cities.