A very important question was raised in parliament by Louie French MP about the financial management from Mayor of London see link

Tim Donovan writes on BBC London today, 26. January 2024 at 13:00 that the home secretary has blamed a sharp rise in knife crime in London for driving the increase in England and Wales.

The latest figures released by (ONS) show recorded knife crime across London rose by 22% in the year to September but nationally it decreased by 5%.

Apparently across the country hospital admissions from knife injuries for people under 25 reduced by 25% since 2019.

In Greater London there was an increase of 17% for hospital admissions for this type of incident.

Mr Cleverly said that police had not been given the power to seize knives held in private. source

Another post by a Paul Clarkson refutes that it is only other parties who are responsible and points towards West Midlands and Cleveland but is rebuked in that Chris Philp points out that the West Midlands territory is run by a Labour Mayor.

PCC in West Mids is Labour Simon Foster FYI

— Chris Philp MP (@CPhilpOfficial) January 26, 2024

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That now throws open the discussion that if Cleveland is run by a Conservative Mayor or Police and Crime Commissioner where the fault lies. Yes, Steve Turner (Conservative) is PCC in Cleveland since 2021.

What’s really important is that all try political point scoring with an issue, which cannot be ignored. Metropolitan Police area is in third place of the Hall of Shame with regards to knife crime. The huge discrepancy in numbers of knife crime between areas is significant and it needs further analysis as to why some areas suffer significantly more knife crime than others. The top five being

1. West Midlands
2. Cleveland
3. Metropolitan Police
4. Greater Manchester
5. South Yorkshire

Question is what have these five areas in common and why are they so badly affected by knife crime.

Comparing the highest and lowest available stats we can see that between

• West Midlands 169
• Dorset 37

recorded incidences, there is a huge gap of 132 incidences. I don’t think it is possible to quote across the country statistics in comparison because local differences must be huge both in terms of demographic and crime levels.

The quality of argument brought by either James Cleverly or Sadiq Khan does not address the huge difference in area and incidences therein.