We cannot allow violence to run riot on our streets

THE statistics relating to the gun and knife culture that is now running rampant in some parts of London continue to horrify. The toll is now 55 murdered this year, a senior MP warns about a cocaine epidemic involving Eastern European gangs and now, finally and belatedly, the relevant authorities realise something must be done.

Met chief Cressida Dick has vowed to use “Al Capone tactics” to stop the rising levels in crime (the authorities eventually nabbed Al Capone for tax evasion and not his part in the St Valentine’s Day massacre) and another 120 police officers are to be put out on the streets. And not before time.

This is all very well but it still reeks of too little too late. The rise in gang warfare has been known about for years and yet precious little has been done to stop it. Any number of politicians have sat back and watched as the gangs have run riot. Now we are seeing the tragic and totally predictable results.

Cressida Dick at least seems to have some awareness of the scale of the problem and the need to target the villains through any means possible. But far more needs to be done, something London Mayor Sadiq Khan still does not appear to recognise.

Yesterday he was at it again, mouthing platitudes about how he himself had teenagers. Yes – any decent person is shocked by the loss of young human life.

But getting out there and scaling back a culture that should never have been allowed to develop in the first place is another matter.

The time has come to act.