Knife Crime: stop and search wanted; austerity blamed; a Government licence to carry a knife
The Times is alone in not leading with knife crime. For all other national newspapers the biggest story is of “warzones on our streets” (Express) and what the Government can and cannot do about teenagers being stabbed to death.
The Telegraph wants police to be given stop-and-search powers. Readers see a photo of school friends of stabbing victim Yousef Makki embracing. Yousef, a pupil at Manchester Grammar school, was stabbed to death in Gorse Bank Road, Hale Barns, near Altrincham, on Saturday. Two 17-year-old boys have been arrested on suspicion of murder.
Are more police the answer to the “knife crime epidemic’? The Guardian says it is. The paper says there is a link between stabbings and reduced police numbers brought about by austerity. “How many more, Mrs May?” asks the Mirror, blaming the Prime Minister for 27 murders.
But is that why 27 teenagers have been knifed to death this year, because there are not enough police to control them? Surely there’s something more at the root of the matter than control? May says there is “no direct correlation between certain crimes and police numbers”. So certain crimes police are powerless to stop? Focus less on knife crime, perhaps, and more on people not paying their TV licence, doing 34mph in a 30mph zone and saying nasty things online.
Maybe the State could issue licences for people to own a knife, making a nice little earner from the horror and hitting the perps where the Government likes to hit them hardest: in their pockets?
Nuts? One other proposal for knife control was floated:
A judge wants the points of kitchen knives to be rounded and blunted to reduce the number of young men dying from stab wounds in street attacks.
Judge Nic Madge said ordinary kitchen knives were causing a “soaring loss of life”, rather than more heavily regulated large-bladed weapons… Kitchens contain lethal knives which are potential murder weapons and only butchers and fishmongers need eight or 10 inch kitchen knives with points,” the judge said.
Knives for only those who need them? Look out for the looming fork crime epidemic.
Posted: 5th, March 2019 | In: Key Posts, News, Tabloids Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
