In just 38 weeks England and Wales will be going to polls to elect Police Commissioners. The 3 main parties are currently choosing their candidates and preparing manifestos. What effect will last night's images have on this election? Will any elector be able to forget the images of burning shops and marauding young looters?
The political analysis has hardly started. All three parties were planning to cut police numbers, or police budgets - which amounts to the same thing. These plans were made against a background of falling crime figures and successful policing - until now. Macmillans famous phrase in describing the greatest challenge facing poloticians, "Events dear boy, events" has never looked as prescient.
Suddenly and graphically, the public are made aware of how thinly stretched the police are in the face of unexpected challenges. We are reassured when watching a sea of police officers tackling demos and marches. We forget that these are set pieces, planned like an old fashioned military campaign. What we saw last night was urban guerrilla warfare and we don't have the numbers to tackle this on a continuous basis - night after night in an ever moving scenario.
I expect tonight to be much quieter and the likelihood is that we've seen the worse. It may rain, always a relief on these occasions, and many of the rioters will return to school in a week or so but the images will remain, until May and beyond.
Expect a rapid rewriting of the manifestos and another look at candidates. Look for a toughening of the messages and a harder rhetoric.
The elections will be seen as a mid-term judgement on the Coalition. It's no secret that many are hardly convinced that the politicisation of the police will be a positive step. (I must declare an interest, as a member of the Cumbria Police Authority) The political gossip is that elected Police Commissioners are a personal goal of the Prime Minister, but will the events of the last 3 days weaken, or strengthen, David Cameron's resolve. It will all become clearer in a week or so but the sights and sounds we have all seen on rolling news programmes will be an inevitable backdrop to a set of elections that could well become a bitter fight for ownership of the law and order agenda.
We may see that the public get behind these elections and see them as a vital step in securing a Police force that responds to their wishes. Or the whole procedure could be seen as a huge and expensive distraction. Upon such judgements are political careers made - or dashed.