Shocking tally of teenagers killed in UK - 1 every 5 days

Violent deaths of young people in their teenage years for 2008 has reached 65 with nearly two thirds knifed to death. See Telegraph knife crime article. With this figure doubling over the last five years in England's capital city of London, police have decided to make the issue a leading priority to tackle across the UK.

Knife crime and Joe Swash, king of the jungle

Knife crime and "I'm a celebrity, Get me out of here" - I didn't think the two would be connected. But thank goodness they are!

Joe Swash - the winner of the reality TV show set in the outback of Australia over the past three weeks - has donated his charity money, estimated at £30,000, from the show to an anti-knife crime campaign in memory of 16-year-old victim Ben Kinsella.

As a friend of the dead youngster's sister, Brooke, he decided to donate the money to fund anti-street crime and related charity work.

The stabbing problem, Damilola Taylor and David Cameron

There is a thoughtful knife crime interview online between the father of Damilola Taylor, the young lad stabbed to death when he was 10 (eight years go now), and Tory leader David Cameron.

Probably Cameron, out of all leaders I've listened to, has an ability to understand the holistic sense of the knife and other violent crime issues that affect the UK.

He seems able to at least start to articulate the problem. He also seems to indicate some direction(s) required for solutions. It does however demonstrate how far we've got to go to have the kind of safer, happier society that is eluding us. In fact, the worrying part about this interview was how it clearly underlined the fact that UK society has got consistently worse over many years.

Things are deteriorating. I think this interview is a perceptive piece that highlights some areas that have been going wrong. For instance, as a society, we find ourselves in a life of just "work" and "home".

Cameron then says everything in between we've given up on. I don't think that's necessarily true - I think we are forced to work and work to provide profits for others... whether that's the bank we pay mortgages too, the computer store charging hundreds of pounds for a machine out of date in a couple of years, the pub charging £3-£4 for a pint... we know the list is endless.

I wonder if we need to develop a more co-operative approach to our lives, where community develops because each is reliant on others to survive as well as be successful.

Fine words, nice ideas - but a million miles away it seems from solving the knife crime problem. Still, as I've said before... never, never, never give in!