Britons Need To Worry More About Knives

The charity Cancer Research UK surveyed 2000 Britons about their fears, and found some surprising results.

When asked to choose what they feared most from a list including developing Alzheimer’s, being in debt, old age, being the victim of knife crime, cancer, being in a plane crash, motor neurone disease, being in a car accident, having a heart attack, losing your job and losing your home — more people (20 per cent) overall chose cancer than anything else.

What? Cancer more frightening than knife crime? How is this possible? I mean, look at the way the Sun chose to tease today’s story about the government’s reversal on automatic jail sentence for blade wielders. That knife is HUGE.

Look, we don’t call it Knifecrime Island because of the actual knife crime; we call it Knifecrime Island to mock a tabloid culture that attempts to inspire fear of an epidemic of lawlessness and stabbistry at odds with reality, where every article must be illustrated with a photo of a dagger-wielding yob in a hoodie. If people aren’t more afraid of knife crime than anything else then the British press is not doing its job. Must try harder. (Related: Doesn’t anybody worry about glassing anymore? I miss glassing.)