Responding to the Government’s announcement that certain machetes and ‘zombie knives’ may be outlawed, Liberal Democrat Home Affairs Spokesperson Alistair Carmichael MP said:
We all want to see dangerous knives off our streets, but this Conservative government has consistently failed to keep our communities safe.
With crime rates on the rise and so many cases of all kinds going unsolved, it’s clear that this is a party that cannot get even the basics of policing right.
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Drugs – the risk of taking the wrong approach – Part 1 (Daniel Stylianou)
Observations of an Expat: Gaza Ceasefire (Tom Arms)
The Green Book podcast (Peter Wrigley)
Hope is not just desirable, it could be the key to defeating populism! (Chris Bowers)
Elon Musk’s X ownership amplifies the far-right agenda in Britain and beyond (Jack Wilkin)
By 1954 not even Dickie Attenborough was safe on a bombsite
Google-Backed Chatbots Suddenly Start Ranting Incomprehensibly About Dildos
Tories in disarray as Badenoch wings it on pensions
Can you help Barnardo's?
Latest voting intention and leadership ratings opinion polls
Calum Miller makes the case for a much closer relationship with the European Union
The Bailey Head, Oswestry, is CAMRA's Pub of the Year
Aging, Development, and Living at High Altitudes (Oxygen Levels)
The Charge of the Light Brigade - A perfect analogy for the United Kingdom today
Peter Davies 
Craig Levene 
Nick Baird 
David Evans 
Anthony Acton 
4 Comments
Existing laws allow police to stop and search for offensive weapons – machetes and zombie knives would already count as offensive weapons if carried in public. The problem is that the police are constrained from using stop and search powers in areas where carrying offensive weapons is a greater issue for feel of being accused of targeting stop and search operations in a racist way. In this context, making machetes and zombie knives will make little practical difference and will only have an impact if such items are discovered during a house search that may have been initiated for some other reason.
This latest attack on knives is just one more bit of publicity for the Conservatives during an election campaign.It has been done a number of times in the past.
Yet another attack on our liberties. When will we stop allowing criminals to dictate what our liberties can be? The crime is assault/murder NOT the ownership of the weapon. If we continue following this abhorrent and flawed logic then we are one Christmas turkey carving incident away from having our kitchen knives banned too.
The ownership and possession of a weapon in public is a threat to our liberties and even more so when they get into the wrong hands. That’s why there are so many shootings in the US, too often in the news nowadays, where gun ownership is out of control. Stop and Search is also an effective tool in preventing knife crime if used proportionately and as part of intelligence led policing. Even the mayor of London approved the use of such powers in areas where there have been major incidents and wide scale disorder.