Towards the end of April, a group of prospective candidates gathered at a radio station in central London to debate the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. With the mayoral election a week away, they were there to influence listeners and potentially oust the incumbent Mayor. As far as political debates go, it was hardly Trump versus Hillary. However, it all descended into farce when one opponent brought up Khan’s track record on the safety of Londoners.

When challenged by Susan Hall, his conservative rival, over machete-wielding gangs, the Labour mayor sarcastically told her she should ‘stop watching The Wire –we’re not living in Baltimore, USA, in the noughties’.

A few days later, terrifying screams took over the peaceful residential streets of a borough in north-eastern London. A man dressed in a hooded yellow sweatshirt had been seen in the area, prowling the streets and wielding a samurai sword. Five people were attacked, one of whom – 14-year-old Daniel Anjorin – died of his injuries. The number of fatalities may have been significantly higher if the police had not responded so quickly. A courageous officer intervened to arrest the suspect after he had already attacked two colleagues, leaving them with permanent injuries (one officer nearly lost a hand).

Although it is misleading for commentators like me to merely state, ‘If X were in power, this would never have happened,’ the mayor’s contemptuous and uninformed view of crime and law enforcement must be addressed.

Knives are a major issue in London. Twenty-nine per cent of the nearly 50,000 knife-related offences that occurred in England and Wales last year happened in the capital. The data shows that the Metropolitan Police recorded 14,577 knife offences last year, a 22-per-cent increase from the year before. Knife crime increased by 15 per cent in Redbridge, the borough where Daniel was killed – the highest level since 2018.

Restrictions on the sale of these kinds of knives have long been suggested. Take the proposed ban on the ‘Zombie’ knife. This is a long, extravagant blade made popular by its use in zombie films and included in the Offensive Weapons Act of 2019. According to the law, knives with writing or images deemed ‘threatening’ on the blade or handle would be prohibited. Manufacturers were in compliance as long as they removed the images. Following Theresa May in 2016, a series of conservative home secretaries pledged to strengthen the legislation in order to close this loophole. To finally outlaw the sale of zombie knives, an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill was required.

It won’t go into effect until September. Bans, however, would be naive and not the answer. An argument brought up by none other than Idris Elba – yes, the star of HBO’s The Wire – slammed the government, claiming that a ‘one size fits all’ approach will not remove weapons from the street. To put it bluntly, nothing will stop a psychopath from wanting to kill someone. Meanwhile, people are dying. Of the 590 homicides last year, 41 per cent involved the use of a knife or other sharp instrument.

Young people make up a sizeable portion of those who die. The number of teenagers who died in London in 2021 was the highest level ever recorded. Thirty people, aged thirteen to nineteen, were killed in the capital that year; 27 of them were stabbed to death with knives. Across the nation, the story is the same. The Office of National Security reports that 51 teenagers were murdered in England and Wales in the year ending March 2023; 82 per cent of these murders involved the use of a knife.

Increasing stop-and-search would be far more successful. The Mayor, on the other hand, is opposed, citing worries about ‘institutional racism’ or racial profiling. Khan had declared he would ‘do everything in [his] power to cut stop and search’. Consequently, the practice has decreased dramatically during his mayoralty and by 44 per cent over the past two years.

Personally, I am not much of a fan of stop-and-search. But ‘needs must when the devil drives’, to use a Shakespearean idiom. London is not some Richard Curtis-imagined upper-middle-class utopia. Its streets now resemble Mad Max or The Purge more than Love Actually or Notting Hill. Rival drug gangs engage in open combat while brandishing machetes. Something has to change. For inspiration, we must turn to our northern cousins.

Strange as it may seem, Scotland found a solution. In the early 2000s, the tartan nation was being torn apart by gang violence. To combat the problem, Strathclyde Police set up the Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), an ambitious large-scale initiative to tackle violent behaviour. It was successful, as evidenced by a 38-per-cent decrease in homicide and a 43-per-cent fall in serious assault since 2006-2007. This was achieved by tripling the sentence for carrying a knife and expanding the use of stop-and-search. Its use was four times higher in 2010 than in England.

However, it wasn’t just a case of hang ‘em and flog ‘em. The Scots put on the velvet glove in addition to the iron fist. Gang members were invited to police stations by the VRU, where they were informed they were all under surveillance and faced lengthy prison sentences. They were also told about how their acts of violence affected the people they left behind. Mothers talked about losing their sons. After that, they were given offers of support, education, housing and employment so they could leave the gang world behind. It was bold and ambitious. Something progressives ought to consider instead of simply shouting racist or fascist epithets at law enforcement.

It’s not a one-size-fits-all problem or solution. One example cannot be extrapolated to produce the same outcomes. Contrasting problems that England faces include demographics and the way the stigma associated with stop-and-search procedures operates differently in communities where the majority of gang members are Caucasian. (Scotland is 96 per cent white).

Khan argues that the public’s trust in the police will be damaged by their overbearing stop-and-search policies.

He ought to tell Daniel Anjorin’s parents about that.