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Our report today on gun crime among young London gangs reveals worrying trends. The number of guns seized in the first seven months of this year - almost 1,000 - was the same as for the whole of 2002.
Between September 2008 and the same month this year, "gunenabled crime" soared by more than 30 per cent.
Police report a trend for feuding gangs to inflict non-fatal wounds on each other, over trivial issues of "respect".
Operation Trident, launched by the Metropolitan Police in 1998 to combat black-on-black gun crime, has scored real successes.
However, under 10 per cent of its officers are from ethnic minority backgrounds: while it needs experienced detectives, some in the black community think it would achieve more with young black gang members if it looked more like them.
At the same time, sentences for gun possession need to be more strictly enforced: while there is in theory a five-year minimum sentence for illegal firearms possession, in 2005 only about 40 per cent of those convicted got the full sentence.
One senior police officer has called for a 10year minimum sentence for firing a gun and earlier this month the Lord Chief Justice issued tougher sentencing guidelines for smugglers or suppliers of guns.
Gun and gang crime also requires a change within the communities where it is ingrained: in the end, only the black community can change the attitudes of its own young people.
London is an open and tolerant place, and, in fact, its crime rates reflects that: it is not an especially violent city by European standards, let alone those of America.
Its murder rate has been stable for some years and gun crime remains relatively rare. A few alienated young men's craving for "respect" must not be allowed to blight the capital.
Boris island
Building an airport in the Thames Estuary is technically feasible, according to a report commissioned for London's Mayor.
The appeal of easing strain on Heathrow by building runways in a place where the approaches are over water, not dense centres of population, is obvious. Connection to the capital would be by high-speed rail.
The immediate area needs regeneration and jobs and, according to the Mayor, the sovereign wealth funds of Gulf states are interested in providing at least some of the vast sums required.
That said, the need to control carbon emissions from aviation means London cannot simply treat itself to a new airport.
Government must encourage switching from domestic and short-haul flights to rail and cut traffic and aviation pollution around Heathrow.
There are formidable obstacles to overcome before a Thames Estuary airport could be built. But if creating the island is as achievable as the Mayor's expert says, a vision of something rather remarkable is emerging to the east of the capital.
Question of freedom
The British National Party has elected councillors and MEPs. As such the BBC was entitled to invite BNP spokesman Nick Griffin to appear on Question Time this Thursday and Peter Hain MP is wrong to threaten legal action to get the invitation withdrawn.
The BNP's views are poisonous but democracies allow dissent. Limits to freedom of speech apply if there is a real danger of incitement to racial hatred but in public at least the party's spokesmen are adept at staying within the law.
Throwing Nick Griffin off Question Time would simply feed the BNP's own paranoid and selfaggrandising myths.
Few voters are likely to be won over by the extra respectability the BBC appearance may give Griffin. Mr Hain should back off.
Reader views (1)
What has London become?
We have kids tooled up, roaming around with dangerous weapons. Gang gun fights on the streets every week. Hordes of 'suddenly' rich Eastern Europeans and dubious customers from further afield occupying London's wealthiest districts.
A grim old place with no social norms.
- Mort, Southwark, London, 19/10/2009 11:17
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