London Mayor Boris Johnson talks with Leon Fearon 19, from Lewisham, during a tour of the devastation in riot-hit Clapham Pic: PA

Police were too soft on rioters during three days of serious unrest, said London Mayor, Boris Johnson.

The top politician in the Capital called for the rulebook governing police conduct to be cut, so officers “can have the courage of their convictions.”

Looters who smashed up shops and stolen property will be caught, he vowed.

“When you look at what happened on Saturday night and you look at the all the events, you have to ask yourself: ‘could the police have gone in harder then, could there have been a more significant display of intolerance by us as society of what was going on?’ I think people are inevitably going to ask that question,” said Mr Johnson.

“If you at the police, there are very heavy restrictions on their conduct, it is perhaps not surprising they found the initial outbreak difficult to deal with. I would like the benefit of the doubt and the balance of the argument to be in favour of adults and those in a position of authority.”

Around 16,000 officers were on London’s streets on Tuesday night, 24 hours after the worst scenes of disorder in living memory.

“I think that if you look back over the last few days, I think the robust response last night needs to be continued,” said the Mayor.

Sections of society have grown seriously dysfunctional, he claimed. An absence of authority figures for youngsters was a factor in widespread disturbances which shocked London and last night spread around the country, according to the Mayor.

“It was just unbelievable to think that here in London, you had people who were behaving with a complete absence of restraint and a complete lack of respect for the police,” said Mr Johnson. “It was chilling.

“We’ve got to learn a lesson as a society. Over 20 or 30 years we’ve got into a situation in which we have allowed young people an endless sense of entitlement.

“There are positive things about this; young people aren’t repressed. But there’s an absence of boundaries and an absence of respect. Give adults and teachers back the right to impose authority.

“What you have to do is have a willingness to come down hard on thugs. There are aspects of our society that have patently gone off the rails.

“When you’ve so many young people with no boundaries and no respect for adults, you have to start to think really creatively about what you’re going to do to address it,” Mayor Johnson told BBC Radio 4.