The officer at the helm of the Metropolitan police has taken a swipe at the government's criticism of his force's handling of the riots.

Tim Godwin, acting commissioner of the Met, said: "I think after any event like this, people will always make comments who weren't there."

Both the home secretary, Theresa May, and the prime minister, David Cameron, were on holiday when the riots erupted last Saturday. Cameron only broke his holiday and arrived back in Britain after the third night of rioting.

His comments followed Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, rejecting May's claim that she had ordered the "more robust" approach that quelled rioting in English cities.

On Friday afternoon May insisted the high numbers of police officers on the streets would be sustained until further notice, despite the UK having had a trouble-free few nights.

She said: "We will be sustaining the numbers for a period of time. We have had some quieter nights but we are not complacent about that. The police will maintain their tough arrest policy, their presence on the streets."

There is anger at the Yard over the savaging the police received in the House of commons from the prime minister and May.

Godwin was speaking as he left this mornings meeting in Whitehall of Cobra, the government's emergency committee. One source told the Guardian that there was anger at the Yard after the PM's statement, adding police chiefs there were "appalled" by the remarks.

Godwin said he was receiving support "from a lot of quarters" when asked whether he was receiving the full backing of the home secretary.

"What I can say is that with the unprecedented scenes that we found in London, I have got some of the best commanders that we have seen in the world … that showed great restraint as well as great courage," Godwin said.

"As a result of that we were able to nip this in the bud after a few days. I think the issue around the numbers, the issue around the tactics – they are all police decisions and they are all made by my police commanders and myself.

"As a result of that we have now got a lot of public support, we are working hard to identify all the offenders and we will continue to work relentlessly if it takes us months."

Orde said tactics had changed because more officers were made available. The fact that MPs had come home from holiday was "an irrelevance".

May had "no power whatsoever" to cancel all police leave, Orde said on Thursday. "The more robust policing tactics you saw were not a function of political interference; they were a function of the numbers being available to allow the chief constables to change their tactics," he told BBC's Newsnight.

Relations between the Conservative-led government and police chiefs are at an all-time low according to some sources.

Orde defended the police after David Cameron used an emergency debate on the riots in the Commons to critice their tactics.

Meanwhile, a 22-year-old man has been arrested over the murder of Richard Mannington Bowes, the 68-year-old who was attacked as he tried to put out a fire during riots in Ealing. Bowes had been in hospital with critical injuries – his death was announced early Thursday morning.

Four other deaths that took place during the riots are being investigated by police. A man was found shot in a car in Croydon and three men were hit by a car in Birmingham.