ES Views: Budget cuts helped cause this wave of knife crime

It is obvious that those who carry and use knives are responsible for the increase in knife crime and fatal stabbings. However, there are contributory factors from a police perspective.

When I served in the Metropolitan Police every ward had a dedicated Safer Neighbourhoods Team. My team disrupted three gangs and, as well as being a visible deterrent, engaged with youths and used weapon sweeps and stop and search to make arrests and take weapons off the street.

However, after the Government’s budget cuts, the Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe disbanded these valuable teams. He supported the then Home Secretary Theresa May’s unconvincing plan to reduce stop and search. As a result, officers have become scared of using this important preventative tool.

Once a youth is armed and prepared to use a knife, only a police officer using stop and search can remove the knife and and save lives. They now care less about being captured than being attacked because gangs have been allowed to take over the streets where police once patrolled.

The Government’s policies and previous senior police officers are partly responsible for the increase in knife crime — which urgently needs addressing.
Clifford Baxter

The appalling knife crime situation in London merits a return to stop and search [“Weekend of knife carnage: 3 killed”, April 24].

Of course some people will feel they are being picked on more than others but if we want to stop these killings the police have to act.

It is essential also that parents make sure their kids aren’t carrying weapons. They must tell them that knives will not protect them but make it more likely that they will end up in court or in hospital.
David Reed

The Mayor’s Online Hate Crime Hub, the first unit of its kind in the UK, will give a real boost to our capacity to tackle online hate.

Hate crime has no place in London. By working with key stakeholders from social media organisations, victim support groups and the community, this new approach should help the police prevent hate crime and challenge perpetrators of abuse.

Sadly, we have seen a rise in all forms of hate crime in the past 12 months. Racist and religious hate crime has grown in particular, with an 18.8 per cent increase in the past year. The Mayor has rightly taken a zero- tolerance approach and the launch of this hub will help us to tackle these atrocious acts wherever they occur.
​Unmesh Desai, Labour’s London Assembly policing and crime spokesperson

A simple plan can work for the Tories

The Tories appear to be heading for a huge majority and even a revival in Scotland and Wales. It helps to have a weak Opposition but a simple selling point seems to be at the heart of their appeal: they are the Brexit party. Just like the SNP, they are benefiting from “one-trick politics”.
John Gemmell
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M Henderson [Letters, April 24] asks what can prevent an influx of hard-Right Brexiteer MPs, given that Tory candidates will be selected by constituency associations. When it comes to safe seats being vacated, Conservative Central Office says it will draw up a shortlist of three candidates. It will be for those associations to resist such diktats should they not reflect the complexion of their constituents.
J M C Watson

Blair is insulting the public's intelligence

Tony Blair’s support of organisations which wish to “keep open the right of people to change their minds on Brexit” shows a disdainful attitude towards the British electorate [Comment, April 21].

He seems to forget that £9 million of taxpayers’ money was spent on the pro-Remain pamphlet. The use of public funds for political purposes does not trouble him.

If the referendum outcome had been different, would Blair and his ilk give those who voted Brexit a chance to change their minds?
Keeley-Jasmine Cavendish

Population growth outstrips housing

Mark Wadsworth [Letters, April 21] makes some fine points about why house prices in London are so high but he misses the point that in the post-war years the population fell.

We had lost two generations of young men, and women were enjoying careers and incomes they had never had before. They didn’t want large families, so the two eras are not comparable.

The country now lets in 300,000 people a year more than those who leave. No housing programme could build enough houses to cope.
Joan Bridge-Taylor

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Pollution affects the health of our lungs

We are very pleased to see your coverage of air pollution in London and the Mayor’s campaign to reduce it. London’s air quality greatly affects all those with respiratory problems and those with different types of interstitial lung disease feel more acutely the worsening of air quality.

Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) has the worst prognosis of all restrictive lung conditions, collectively known as interstitial lung disease (ILD), with a median mortality rate of two to five years from the date of diagnosis. Prior to 2016 it was thought that about 15,000 people lived with IPF in the UK. However, research by the British Lung Foundation in 2016 found that 32,500 was a more accurate figure.

In 2015, St George’s Hospital in Tooting set up a pulmonary rehabilitation research programme to help patients living with ILD. The programme consisted of a series of physical tests and exercises, pulmonary muscle strengthening and improved breathing techniques. The trial proved to be beneficial for patients.

We can only anticipate worsening lung health in the years ahead. But, along with the British Lung Foundation, we are striving to improve the situation for those living with this condition.
J Conway and L Gresswell, ILD Support Group, St George’s Hospital

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Not all investors are good for football

Was it not former Leyton Orient chairman Barry Hearn who once said West Ham United taking over the Olympic Stadium would lead to a slow, lingering death for his club? That process appears to have been much quicker following his sale of the club to Francesco Becchetti.
Andy Baker

If you were to ask fans of Charlton Athletic or Blackburn Rovers what they thought of foreign investment, you would get a frosty response. Hopefully the sad plight of Leyton Orient will teach other clubs to be more wary of foreign investors.
Phil Morris

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