London’s Knife Crime ‘Epidemic’

The British media do make me laugh. They have the attention span of a forgetful goldfish in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. A couple of weeks ago, they were obsessed with Poundshop Bond villain and definite heterosexual Vladimir Putin allegedly poisoning a double agent in Salisbury (see here and here). Then last week, it was all about the disgusting anti-Semitism amongst parts of the Corbynite far left that currently dominates the Labour party. This week’s panic is all about the alleged spike in knife and gun crime in Greater London. Coming next week, Meghan Markle’s affair with Gerry Adams.

 

There does appear to have been an increase in knife and gun deaths in some of the, shall we say, less salubrious parts of  Greater London in recent months. Whether this makes London a more dangerous city than New York, as some parts of the gutter press have suggested, is pure speculation. What does appear obvious is that most of the victims of the killings come from minority ethnic communities across the capital. Some people – particularly David ‘I had a friend who died at Grenfell Tower’ Lammy – are making this a racial issue. An interesting piece in the Independent – a newspaper I usually have very little time for as it makes the Guardian and the so-called BBC look balanced and well-researched – suggested Violent crime in London would have been tackled better – and sooner – if the victims were white. I have some sympathy for the writer’s suggestion that the Establishment don’t really care about what is happening but I don’t believe this is a racial issue.