Tory Mayoral Candidate: Knife Crime Debate Changed When White People Started Being Stabbed

10 March 2019, 09:33

The Conservative candidate challenging Sadiq Khan in next year's London Mayoral election has told LBC that people's view on knife crime has changed in the last week because white people are becoming involved.

Shaun Bailey told Andrew Castle that battling knife crime has become about the literal survival of our children.

He said: "It's been elevated a bit more to the top of the political agenda, the public agenda.

"People are no longer just speaking about it in this moral panic that it's a small number of people who are killing each other. I think people are beginning to realise now it's a culture of disrespect.

"It's a culture that is not just in black children, it's amongst all of our children.

"And it's something that there is no silver bullet to, but we do have to take action on a number of levels if we're going to make a change.

"We've also got to realise that we can't just arrest our way out of this problem as well.

"We are talking here about the survival of our children in the most literal sense and that's why I put it in those terms."