GMP federation chair shares fears of energy price riots and 'unravelling of society'

The chairman of the Greater Manchester Police Federation has shared fears over widescale energy price riots - and a 'serious risk that we will see the unravelling of society'.

PC Lee Broadbent shared a poll on Twitter asking police officers if they believed forces "have the operational capacity to deal with wide-spread riots as well as routine policing".

Sharing the poll, PC Broadbent wrote: "What every chief officer publicly shies away from, every front line cop knows. It’s not that we wouldn’t passionately hold the line.. it’s how long we could actually do it."

The poll contained a quote from an article in the Guardian by The Observer's chief political commentator Andrew Rawnsley.

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It read: "Andrew Rawnsley writes: 'Without action to protect people from colossal increases in their bills, there is a very serious risk that we will see the unravelling of the fabric of society' Do we have the operational capacity to deal with wide-spread riots as well as routine policing?"

The poll went live shortly after 9pm on Sunday night, and by 1.30am this morning had received nearly 1,000 votes. At that point, 95.2% of responders said they believed police forces did not have the operational capacity to deal with wide-spread riots.

Commenting on the tweet, @himoverthere - who describes themselves as a "Crown Servant" - said: "As I’ve said previously, we wouldn’t even cope with riots on the scale of 2011 anymore. This has the potential to be far worse in a greater number of locations."

The Control Gal - whose twitter bio says she is a 'Mother, Police Controller, with a Special Constable