The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

By Professor John Robertson OBA

As another tragic death by knife of a child in England, headlines across the media, Scotland’s Herald and the policing magazine 1919, attempt to scare Scots into thinking things are no different here when they clearly are.

In 2006/2007, there were just over 4 000 recorded crimes of ‘having in a public place and article with a blade or point.’ By 2016/2017, the figure had fallen by half to just over 2 000.¹

By 2019/2020, the figure had climbed to 2 666 before falling again to 2 582 last year.²

In England & Wales, in the same year, there were 50 500 cases, nearly 20 times as many and nearly twice as many per head of population.³

With particular regard to the extremely dangerous ‘Zombie’ knives, there were 15 cases recorded in 2023/2024 in Scotland.⁴ In England & Wales, ‘in 2023, ‘zombie’ knives, swords and machetes were mentioned in more than 14,000 crimes, recorded.’⁵

This 900 to 1 ratio, 90 to 1 per head of population, is shocking and were it reversed Scotland’s media would be feeding on daily.

Sources:

1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-handling-offensive-weapons/pages/3/
2. https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/pages/1/
3. https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/sn04304/
4. https://www.gov.scot/publications/recorded-crime-scotland-2023-24/
5. https://geppsolicitors.co.uk/site/blog/criminal-law-news/knife-crime-in-the-uk-can-banning-zombie-knives-curb-the-violence/#:~:text=In%202023%2C%20%E2%80%98zombie%E2%80%99%20knives%2C%20swords%20and%20machetes%20were,of%20these%20involved%20machetes%2C%20swords%20and%20%E2%80%98zombie%E2%80%99%20knives.

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