Birmingham Post

Gordon Brown declared anyone caught carrying a blade ("anyone," in this context, being an alternative description for "mindless thug") will be prosecuted.

Brown said: "It is completely unacceptable to carry a knife or a gun. We are to step up action. Where the police have previously been cautioning people there now has to be a presumption of prosecution. We will charge, not caution."

Let me run that past you again: "We will charge, not caution."

Yes, stunning, isn't it? At the moment, a disaffected hoodie or aspiring gangster crew member can be nabbed with a knife, whisked off to the local nick, given a cup of tea, a jammy dodger and a "stern talking to" before being sent packing with nothing more than a slap on the wrists.

If he or she is a juvenile, and mummy or daddy can't be bothered to leave the pub, the Old Bill will probably arrange for the trainee lout to be taken home after receiving his child-friendly caution, which is branded a "reprimand" or "final warning" and is commonly known in the criminal fraternity as a "right old earful".

All this is going to change, however. Or at least it is in those areas of the country, including Birmingham, where the war on knife crime, for that is what it is, isn't going awfully well.

Officially, cities such as Birmingham are to be newly designated as knife hotspots. It's a delightful label. I feel so proud to live in a stigmatised knife hotspot and look forward to receiving a corresponding cut in my local taxes because of the collective failure of the authorities to deal with the problem.

Overseas visitor: "Excuse me. Am I right in thinking Birmingham didn't win the contest to be Capital of Culture, and Liverpool did?"

Brum tourism official: "Yes, that's right. But we are a knife hotspot. And when it comes to stabbings and armed hold-ups, we're right up there with those cheeky Scousers."

Now police officers, and by implication Labour, are going to give the impression of being tough on knife crime by doing what they should have been doing all along - and throwing the book at violent offenders.

Next month, Home Secretary Jacqui Smith will announce details of a Violent Crime Action Plan, following that tried and tested Labour spin policy of announcing you are going to announce a "get tough on ..." policy, announcing a "get tough on ..." policy, and announcing you have announced a "get tough on ..." policy.

The cautioning of criminals, rather than formally charging them with offences, has long been a discredited arm of this country's namby-pamby law enforcement policy. The argument in favour of cautioning is that some reprobates are so terrified by the mere experience of being hauled before a police inspector that they immediately learn the error of their ways and henceforth will walk the path of righteousness.

This might work in the case of young scallywags caught scrumping apples or shoplifting sherbet fountains. But the idea that cautioning works in some altruistic, socialising way, and deters offenders from becoming habitual criminals, comes from the same school of thought that believes Dixon of Dock Green really was Britain's first fly-on-the-wall crime documentary.

Cautioning has long been used as a quasi-judicial brush to sweep what would otherwise be awkward, time-consuming prosecutions under the carpet. All too frequently offences for which cautions have been issued have included sexual crimes and crimes of violence, the warped reasoning being that it has been in the "public interest" not to prosecute.

The Government, then, should not be applauded then for suspending cautioning for knife offences in cities such as Birmingham. It could, and should, have done this years ago when the carrying of knives first emerged as a cultural trend.

The bigger issue here is the use of cautioning across the board; and if the suspicion persists that cautioning represents an easy option for crooks and law enforcers, that is because it is.