Tougher knife sentences and is now the time to arm police?
In Metrotalk: Britain's knife crime epidemic and what can be done about it.
Readers in today’s MetroTalk express shock at the surge in UK knife attacks, paralleling them with the US shooting epidemic.
Are current knife possession sentences effective deterrents?
Meanwhile, readers contemplate Humza Yousaf’s resignation as a sad blow to the LGBTQ community and oppose the idea shifting responsibility for violent offenders abroad.
Share what you think about these topics and more in the comments
Carrying a weapon should result in a 6 month sentence
Knife crime is to the UK what mass shootings are to the US.
Barely a day goes by without news of yet another person (more often than not a child or teenager) being stabbed to death or wounded – sadly, all to often by another child or teenager.
Our lawmakers must stop pussyfooting around the issue.
Carrying a bladed weapon, whether or not it has been used in a crime, should result in six months behind bars from the first offence. If used in a crime, it should be five years.
Offenders should be named, regardless of their age. There is no reason why the identity of the 12-year-old boy who is accused of attempting to murder a teenage girl in Kent in March should not be made public.
Any non-legitimate website that offers bladed weapons for sale must be hit with a minimum fine of £5million.
Indeed, if it can be proved that the weapon used in a killing was bought from any such website, or other retail outlet, the chief executives of the site, or shop owner, should be charged as an accessory to murder.
We like to think of ourselves as a civilised country. Sadly that is not the case, increasingly we are seeing our society taken over by the law of the jungle – not only expressed in the increase in knife crime but the lawlessness of illegal protesters who abuse the right to freedom of speech. Bob Readman, Sevenoaks
What’s the solution to knife crime?
So another maniac goes on the rampage with a bladed weapon, kills a 14-year-old boy and injures four others (Metro, Wed). It’s about time police were armed. This sort of thing is happening too frequently. Chris, Thatcham
Rwanda isn’t the answer to our overcrowded prisons
Jean from Huddersfield (MetroTalk, Thu) suggests sending our most violent offenders to Rwanda as a solution to overcrowded prisons.
Shifting a problem to another country is never the answer. The UK government needs to deal with the issue.
We need rehabilitation programmes to avoid recidivist behaviour for starters.
Invest in education, housing and youth facilities. Invest in healthcare. Empower people to want to strive for a better successful life. Invest in people. Maggie, Harrow
I was astounded by Jean’s view. Maybe if we pit the asylum seekers against violent offenders in a wrestling tournament in Rwanda we could sell tickets and fund the air fares.
Sorry to be flippant but I don’t think Rwanda needs our criminals as well. Susan, Oldham
Railway staff are treated like dirt
How dare Emily (MetroTalk, Wed) suggest that ‘the majority of rail staff treat passengers like dirt’.
During the pandemic, railways still ran to ensure essential services could be maintained and were themselves considered to be essential services. And yet did you clap for them on a Thursday evening? I doubt it.
Rail staff are abused verbally and physically and wear body-worn cameras as a form of deterrent (as the police do).
Criticise the operators and the Department for Transport all you like but those frontline colleagues are mothers, sons and carers like everyone else and deserve thanks. Alexis, Bristol
Will renationalising make trains more efficient?
Whether or not the railways should be renationalised as Labour proposes is open to debate (MetroTalk, Thu).
One thing I would say is when they were nationalised, I don’t recall engineering works seemingly taking place practically every weekend. Roger Smith, Witham
In the latest tiresome mud-slinging at the Tories on your letters page, Julian Self (MetroTalk, Tue) is extremely selective with the truth.
Neither Labour or Tories can be blamed for the 2008 recession
The financial crisis of 2008 was indeed not caused by Labour but neither was it caused by ‘greedy bankers’. And nor can David Cameron and George Osborne be blamed for the necessary austerity that ensued.
The UK’s budget deficit as the coalition government took over in 2010 was £103billion or nearly seven per cent of GDP, ten times the level in 2007-08.
The Conservatives had actually managed to balance the books, before the deficit ballooned to £240billion in 2021 through the pandemic (it has dropped considerably since).
The two major crises of the past 15 years were global in nature, as was the recent inflation spike. They can’t be blamed on either Labour or the Tories. Angus, Hammersmith
LGBT community lose ally in Humza
In resigning as Scotland’s first minister – while facing votes of no confidence after collapsing the power-sharing deal with the Greens – Humza Yousaf has lost his chance to make Scotland independent in order to rejoin the EU, thus betraying the results of the Brexit vote.
But I do admire him for his policies to protect trans people from harassment. Yousaf really is a friend of the LGBT community. Dorothy, Brighton
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