Understand who you're dealing with.

So the big story this Twelfth of July has been tyres. Yes, the environmental lobby have decided that the real danger of violent bigots building massive bonfires with pictures of Gerry Adams at the top is that they tend to use car tyres, and that burning these can be bad for the environment and your lungs. On Monday night, the news was full of rather strange reports about how, this year, thanks to Friends of the Earth working with the bonfire committees, the bonfires were being built entirely tyre-free. Cue footage of giant all-wood bonfires. By Tuesday, every bonfire was covered with thousands of tyres.

It appears to have occurred to no-one that when you tell people who enjoy rioting that something is both dangerous and illegal, they might do more of it.