Would taking points off kitchen knives stop stab deaths? Er, no.

According to a must read article on the BBC site, there is an easy solution to stopping knife crime; don't sell pointy knives. Apparently, "the proposal came from three emergency medicine specialists, and it's a simple one: getting rid of the points on the ends of longer kitchen knives." Yeah, that'll fix it. Without long pointy kitchen knives to buy, gangs will be completely flummoxed.

The sheer mind-numbing stupidity of this suggestion is bewildering. All we need to do next is ban everything metal and pointy. Although then, perhaps they might just consider using home made weapons instead, so we will need to ban all tools, nails, screws, snooker cues, cricket bats, baseball bats, hockey sticks and so on.

Did anyone else see that video on the telly that was used over and over, picturing a gang showing off their knives? The two main figures were both carrying cleavers anyway.