Boots on the ground?

A report on last summer's riots suggests that a big part of the problem was a lack of police numbers.  Smacks rather of a political statement to me, given the current arguments about cuts to police budgets.  I think a more pertinent cause might have been lack of intelligence - I don't think we public generally appreciate how much the police rely on intelligence to know what's going to happen, or likely to happen, and to have the manpower in place ready to deal with it.  I think the riots caught them by surprise.  Indeed the probability is that the police are always going to struggle to deal with anything which happens spontaneously.  They could perhaps have reacted quicker but I think they were caught on the hop.