1985 Handsworth riots 1500 police officers drafted into the area, about 45 shops looted and burnt, and a trail of damage running into hundreds of thousands of pounds. As well as racial tension, unemployment was seen as a major factor in the riots; by the time of the riots, fewer than 5% of the black population to have left school that summer had found employment. The riots were the first of a series of similar riots across the country during the autumn of 1985, notably the Broadwater Farm riot in London which also resulted in a fatality (the murder of policeman Keith Blakelock).
London: The Biography on the other it has long been resistant to 'planning'; he cites the example of Paris's development under Baron Hausmann as a counterpoint and contrast. Some commentators have focused on Ackroyd's political perspective and how this affects his analysis. In one example, Iain Sinclair argued that his message is fundamentally conservative: "poll-tax riots and uprisings at Broadwater Farm Estate are coeval with the burning of Newgate Prison: they are virtual-reality panoramas from the Museum of London...Subversion may excite for a moment, but it will be crushed." London: The Biography London: The Biography is a 2000 non-fiction book by Peter Ackroyd