New figures uncovered through Freedom of Information requests show that there have been five fatal stabbings a week under Gordon Brown.
Police in England and Wales recorded 277 fatal stabbings in 2007-08, the highest number for thirty years.
These latest figures mean that fatal stabbings are up more than a third under Labour, with the average number of deaths over the last decade standing at 241 a year, compared to 203 in the years 1988-97.
The Shadow Home Affairs Minister, James Brokenshire, who uncovered the statistics, condemned Labour’s failure to tackle knife crime:
"Knife crime is a scourge which claims too many lives and ruins countless others. Yet under Labour it has soared. The Government's only response is short term, ad-hoc police operations, the results of which they spin and manipulate anyway to try and get a good story. 2009 must herald a new approach.”
He stressed concerted action in the long and short term is needed to combat knife crime, and promised a Conservative Government would introduce an automatic presumption of jail for knife possession.
But he also highlighted the need to address the underlying causes of crime, like drugs, family breakdown and gang culture:
“These are issues that Labour have ignored for eleven years but which undermine all our other efforts to combat knife crime.”