AT FIRST glance the other night on the news, it looked as though the great British riot had made a comeback.

Those of us who were around for Charles and Di's wedding well remember it took place during the worst summer of civil unrest in England in over a century, giving rise to the gag that the whole place was "a theme park with riots".

In the lead-up to their big day, every Australian news bulletin was sure to have two items - a light and cheesy colour piece on how the Poms were getting all excited about Charlie's nuptials and an earnest report on the chaos gripping Britain's inner cities.

What the Poms were rioting over was not exactly clear to my 12-year-old mind, though I remember a lot of adult talk about how Enoch had warned them years ago and they hadn't listened.

They rioted again in 1990 - this time over the Poll Tax - by which time I was old enough to have grasped the received wisdom of lefties the world over that Mrs Thatcher was a very wicked woman who had driven the poor of the UK to open revolt.

(To give you an idea of just how big a bogeywoman she was to even some conservatives, I can vividly remember a history class at school where we earnestly debated the question of whether Britain was in "a pre-revolutionary condition". And that was at Melbourne Grammar!)

Sadly for lovers of the great British riot, when Mrs T left Downing St she seemed to take the British taste for street violence with her.

They still know how to put on a show in Northern Ireland and there are parts of Yorkshire where the descendants of Pakistani immigrants have flown the flag in recent years, but, basically, since Thatch it's been quiet.

So I got excited last week when I saw film of a burning police van in London.

The conditions for a flare-up are all present -- the economy's in the toilet, the Conservatives are back in power and young men are again listening to synthesiser music and getting stupid haircuts like Ultravox.

When Prince William announced he was getting spliced, the final tile fell into place -- 1981 has come again!

On closer inspection it turned out to be very disappointing.

The rioters were university students whining about the tripling of tuition fees.

No doubt they have plenty to be upset about, but publics the world over tend to be unmoved by the plight of the privileged.

And while French students have a proud history of ripping up Paris's cobblestones and hurling them at les flics, this lot were easily contained by police inside Whitehall.

They were soon crying begging to be let out to go to the toilet.

Brixton in 1981 it was not.

campbelljam@heraldsun.com.au

Originally published as Tame Brits have lost the ability to riot