To think a National Emergency should be called by Starmer?

Yes. This is just another Reform campaigner’s thread spreading misinformation.
Remember Reform is a private company owned by people who are known to hold their significant wealth in offshore tax havens - not the UK.

Ah yes, bring down the government. what shall we have? Nigel Farage? That well known peace keeper and supporter of gun ownership. That sounds a good plan

As a country, we have significant problems, but talk of a state of emergency is bonkers because:

the majority of people have somewhere to live and food on the table
the majority of people of working age have a job
the majority of children go to school
water is clean and power supplies are functioning
emergency services and the NHS are functioning
public transport functions
defence is in place
the processes that characterise a democracy are working

You hear about them because the press have decided they are going t9 report on every single one, as other posters have said.
I was a teacher. When I took up my first post in 1988 one of my colleagues had on,y recently returned to work after being stabbed at a school event. In about 1994 the school I was teaching at narrowly escaped a stabbing incident because somebody told us about a pupil carrying a blade intending to stab someone he didn’t like. Stabbings are rare in schools but they aren’t a new thing, sadly.

I also agree with the people who are saying the reduction in mental health care over the last 15 years has a lot of repercussions. Many people are not looked after as they should be. Not this government’s fault and actually if we all want to do something about it we need to pay more tax as it’s no longer in the budgets.

Two Tier is an emergency. How can he call one? He is an absolute disaster. This government needs to be brought down as quickly as possible.

What do you think this would achieve and how do you anticipate it being managed and by whom?

Digital ID. that will stop all crime apparently according to some MNetters

I think maybe the press (especially the Daily Mail) have got much more assiduous in their reporting of these incidents. But there has been a lot of knife crime for a long time. Hence the initiative Knifes not Lives. Personally I think we need. lot more police and a lot more training of police. They are not able to be where they should be.

How about vehicular deaths OP?
https://www.brake.org.uk/get-involved/take-action/mybrake/knowledge-centre/uk-road-safety#:~:text=1%2C671%20people%20were%20killed%20(1%2C602,down%20from%2029%2C530%20in%202019).
Should we ban cars, and declare a ‘national emergency’ for the number s of person injured or killed by vehicles?

Still waiting to hear what the OP thinks a national emergency will look like.

How about a lockdown?

Everybody loved that last time 🤣🤣

Nothing to do with Starmer - the horse has bolted ages ago, when people turned their back on Christianity in this country, liberal values set in, together with 'gentle parenting', 'mental illness is not a stigma' (try telling it to the relatives who lost a son because a mentally ill 'treat in the community patient' shoved their son on railtracks) and lack of discipline in our schools, together with the demise of the family and family values. I think it started big time under Thatcher and then Major. Lack of respect for everything and everyone, starting with the lack of respect for authority, starting with the authority of mum and dad, etc. etc. And idiotic comedies, laughing, laughing at what should have caused concern and immediate action - like finding idiocy amusing - as in sketches of Rowan Atkinson, Harry Enfield, etc. etc. Finding idiocy amusing, then normalising it, then making it mainstream. Definitely not Starmer.

Aye, Reform will sort them right out eh OP? The party of peace 🥰

🙄

I also think the narrative that people are feeling fear because of the tabloids is belittling. People are experiencing this. They get on buses, they walk around their dead-end town centres, they live on council estates, they see shoplifters running from shops, they dodge the e-bikes and e-scooters coming at them on the pavement. It's an everyday grind. Even people who live in leafy areas see it in their jobs in schools and hospitals. I know nurses and teachers who hate walking to their cars after work because of large groups of men hanging round.

Do know what a national emergency is called for op?

This thread perfectly illustrates the difference between anecdotes and data. Crime in the UK (and most other developed countries) is way down since the 1990s. Dramatically so for some categories (pic). Even murders have dropped by about 30%.

But people's fear of crime - driven by non-stop news, social media doom-scrolling and algorithms, and politicians stirring the pot - is higher. https://policinginsight.com/feature/analysis/most-crime-has-fallen-by-90-in-30-years-so-why-does-the-public-think-its-increased/

It’s definitely a problem. Knife crime in England and Wales has been creeping up steadily over the past few years. ONS figures show 48,409 knife-enabled offences in the year to March 2023, 50,510 in the year to March 2024, and 53,047 in the year to March 2025.

However, it is still below pre-pandemic levels, which peaked at around 55,000 offences in 2020. So, while obviously an issue, it’s not a sudden upturn, the progression isn’t at a shocking rate and it’s still better than it’s been until fairly recently. Which is why people aren’t regarding it as a national emergency.

It’s horrible, and it’s good that it’s now being more widely reported, so we’re more aware than we were five years ago.

so much is breaking down as public services have consistently have their funds reduced

This is the absolute fundamental issue. The public realm was hollowed out by Cameron and Osborne’s ideological programme of austerity and this was then exacerbated by Brexit and Covid. And yet so many of the people so aerated about crime are also opposed to any kind of tax rises to try and repair some of the damage caused.

I also know people who live in places like Hackney, Wembley and Luton who say that even shootings don't get reported to the police. This isn't Mods versus Teds, this is organised crime with its own safe-houses and off-label doctors.

Best people stop taking their lines of coke at the weekend eh? Those spiffing middle class people have a lot to answer for with the harm and stabbings it causes with county lines, turf wars etc.

I do not believe knife crime has fallen

what has changed is crime being reported and also how stats are collected I know a few people who have been mugged at knife point and don’t bother reporting it as simply not worth it as what can be done

ask members if the police force/courts/prison/probabtion/mh services vast majority will say they are busier than ever

@Netcurtainnelly gently, you are being manipulated by what you read. The news media (tabloids, GB news) and Trump are really pushing this fear narrative. Tiny events that wouldn't be reported before are blown up and publicised. They are digging up stories from Russia or Indonesia to be able to serve up headlines that fit their narrative. They want you to feel scared and they want you to think something drastic needs to be done, even though things haven't changed a jot from prior years, and it is working.

I'm not exactly sure who 'they' are- Reform obviously... But it feels also like something else is at work. Trump used similar scaremongering to bring in martial law army troops to cities that opoosed him. Trump uses it to justify cutting back on peoples freedoms and free speech and roll back democracy. We aren't as far down the road as America but I think someone is studying his playbook. Please keep questioning, keep evaluating, keep looking at the language the media is using to you- why are they using descriptors you would use to describe a war for reporting two people having an altercation? The things we really need to sort haven't changed- poverty, drugs, aspirations to criminal life, reduced respect for authority, lack of mental health services, not enough justice/ sentence time in prison. Our problems are baked in and need serious consideration of how we reach these kids when they are young.

There lies, damn lies then there's statistics! Even official statistics need to be treated with caution. Statistics show knife crime has decreased by 5% in last 5 years but has increased by 58% over last 15 years. So you could argue knife crime has risen, although the ONS says this increase could be due to improved recording. I'm not saying OP is right here and I don't think its a national emergency.

Source:

www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-levels-of-knife-and-violent-crime-are-falling-figures-show#:~:text=Home%20Office%20figures%20also%20show,in%20the%20past%2015%20years.

That knife crime is increasing? Yes, that is a lie.