OPINION - Machete attacks and broad daylight stabbings — London's knife crime is out of control, but we ignore the causes

Pennyfields Park in Poplar not only has alliterative appeal, it is a modestly attractive green space in a not terribly beautiful part of Tower Hamlets. If you were there around five o’clock in the afternoon yesterday you could have witnessed a group of young men chasing another, with machetes. That’s right. Machetes. A blade that gardeners associate with hacking troublesome brambles – and keep in a holster for safety - is in London parlance an adjective to modify the noun “attack”, as in a bloody...