In August 2011 rioting swept England, and the mob, for a time, seemed to rule the streets. The police initially held back, although they had the power to intervene in public disturbances without any other interposition. They had legal sanction vested in them by the 1986 Public Order Act. Before the eighteenth century, governments would have relied on the common law to suppress disorder – under common law riot was a misdemeanour unless it was politically inspired, in which case it was deemed treason. After 1715 reliance was placed on the reading of the Riot Act, which had been enacted the previous year. The Riot Act was to stay on the statute book for two hundred and sixty years, and survives to this day in the armoury of angry parents. The act deemed all riots ‘heinous offences’, not mere misdemeanours. The preamble referred to ‘many rebellious riots and tumults [that] have been taking place of late in divers parts of this kingdom' – a reference to the Tory mobs of 1710 and persisting Jacobite agitation culminating in the insurrection of 1715 – and stated that those involved ‘presume to do so, for that the punishments provided by the laws now in being are not adequate’. Twelve or more engaged in riotous assembly were to be ordered by the mayor, a magistrate or other official to disperse within the hour. If a group failed to do so, the members would be guilty of a felony without benefit of clergy, punishable by death. Force could be used against them and anyone assisting in their dispersal was exempt from any legal consequences should injury or death occur. The use of force to suppress disorder would have to come from the army.