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Right. Shall we talk about knife crime? I carried a knife around for a couple of years in my teens. It was a flick-knife. I got it on a school tip to Rome in 1975 when I was 14.
It gave me status. Where I came from - Liverpool 3 - there was a lack of opportunity, expectation and aspiration. How did you gain status? Being a hard man, mostly. A knife didn't make you hard but it was a status symbol
I'd get it out and show off with mates and acquaintances. Never imagined getting it out in confrontational situations. I was less scared of stabbing someone or getting stabbed than have my status symbol nicked off me
But carrying a knife made my 14-16 contemporaries look at me with respect and envy. Our world was made narrow by poverty and things that would leave people in a different social strata aghast made a difference to us. In one of poorest places in the country, these things mattered
Theresa May says there is no correlation between knife crime and falling police numbers. Sophistry. The reduction in officers is only one part of the wider diminishing of public services that is austerity
Austerity makes people at the lowest levels of society poorer. It also limits aspiration. Youth clubs, mental health programmes and community initiatives have been slashed (no pun intended). People like teachers and youth leaders promoted aspiration
Austerity promotes fear. There are more homeless people on the streets. This makes people scared. Violent crime traditionally rises with poverty. Poverty terrifies people on so many levels. Scared people do things which they believe will protect them. Like carrying knives
Fear is growing because too many people are living on the economic precipice. Where do young people gain status if their avenues to development are closing down? Well, like I did, they probably want respect. If carrying a knife is the quickest (dumbest) way, who's surprised?
So guess what? Reduce poverty and fear and knife crime will fall. The Times's front page today is that state schools are asking parents to donate to pay for books and teachers' salaries. And we wonder why we are sleepwalking to a more violent world
Create an environment where teenagers believe that they have opportunity. Where they aspire to gaining respect and wealth through their ability and not crime and violence
Education, opportunity and aspiration are the answer to most of society's problems. The answer to knife crime is investment in people, communities and a rejection of austerity
And don't @ me with 'I came from a tough background but never carried a knife'. Not everyone had your experience. Have some empathy and look outside your own existence
Anyway, at 16 I sold the flick-knives I had and upgraded to air guns. My auntie found them and that was the end of that. My short career as an arms dealer was over. But it wouldn't have taken much for my life to go in an uglier direction
We have let a huge section of society down by accepting austerity. Most of all we failed the young generation. I cry for those poor youngster who are stabbed and the silly kids who ruin numerous lives with knives
