British PM to hold crisis talks on riots, cleanup new starts and want better

British Prime Minister David Cameron was to hold crisis talks on Tuesday after three nights of riots, looting and arson by masked, hooded youths that wrecked shopping centres in many parts of London and spread to three other cities.

Neighbourhoods across the capital faced a massive clean-up of smashed glass, bricks, bottles and gutted buildings as police reinforcements reclaimed the streets from the youths who had coordinated the looting via mobile phones and social media.

The rioting -- the worst in Britain for decades -- spread to districts across London, and what police called copycat violence broke out in Bristol in the southwest, Birmingham in the Midlands and the northwest port of Liverpool.

Late on Monday, as the violence died down, cars piled high with goods drove at high speed through London streets. Witnesses were told of numerous cases of car theft by groups of looters.

In the poor eastern district of Woolwich, passersby felt the crunch of broken glass underfoot and saw shattered shop fronts and streets strewn with stolen goods, tailors' dummies and other debris.