A TORY London Mayoral candidate has defended the Home Office’s “borderline racist” chicken box knife crime scheme.
Shaun Bailey claimed critics were not “entirely hold of the facts” when they slammed the #knifefree project for being “embarrassing”.
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Some 321,000 boxes featuring the campaign have been sent to more than 200 fast food outlets in England and Wales with true stories written inside.
Speaking at a violent crime conference today, Bailey said: “I personally feel a lot of people weren’t entirely hold of the facts when they complained about the chicken boxes.
“What happened was you had a business that looked into their daily customer base and thinks ‘ah we have lots of young people in here, we want to help – let’s do this.’
However, while Bailey defended the intentions of the scheme he slammed the Home Office for the “culturally insensitive” way they executed it.
He said: “You have the civil service – and let’s be clear the Home Office are the terrible part of the civil service, they make hundreds of mistakes and continue to do that – they somehow made it insensitive.
What happened was you had a business that looked into their daily customer base and thinks ‘ah we have lots of young people in here, we want to help – let’s do this
Shaun Bailey
“But I spoke to a kid who wasn’t in the demographic racially people are saying it [the scheme] was directed at – and he said ‘Shaun, everyone at school goes to the shop afterwards.
‘I want to know about it, I want to be there, what’s going on?’
“If you deal with young people – what is really interesting to young people is other young people.
“They want to know what they’re peers are going through.
“How else do you get these messages across – you have got to meet people where they are.
“I think it was an ill managed attempt, but an attempt to change where they are placing the message.”
OPERATION LONDON CEASEFIRE
London’s knife epidemic has reached unprecedented levels and there have been 86 deaths in the capital since the start of 2019.
Last year was the capital’s bloodiest in a decade – when the number of homicides reached 132.
To tackle the horrifying crime wave, former youth worker Bailey wants to implement an anti-gangs programme in London – similar to the style of projects they run in the US.
His ‘Operation London Ceasefire’ will “halt” violent crime in the capital and would be started on his first day in office, he told a conference at the Centre for Social Justice.
Bailey, a former adviser to David Cameron, plans to use a “large proportion” of City Hall’s £300m adult education budget to encourage gang members away from a life of crime and into jobs.
If you want to use the name Boris Johnson, when he became mayor there was a huge crime problem and he got involved. He solved it.
Shaun Bailey
He also wants cops and social workers to create “safer street zones” as well as host “call ins” where people would tell gangsters “that this nonsense on our streets has to stop”.
The original American version of the scheme, US Operation Ceasefire was first trialled in Boston in 1996.
It targeted crime “hotspots” with “call ins” used to help young offenders – while repeat crooks were jailed.
The scheme saw homicides fall from 44 annually to 10, in just two years.
Bailey also threw his support behind Boris Johnson and accused Labour London Mayor Sadiq Khan of dodging his responsibilities as the capital is ravaged by gang violence.
He said: “If you want to use the name Boris Johnson, when he became mayor there was a huge crime problem and he got involved. He solved it.
“Somebody said to me the other day ‘are you in trouble Shaun because Boris has promised Britain 20,000 cops – does that make Sadiq right?’
“I said ‘no’ because when I spoke to Boris he said ‘Sadiq isn’t going to do it so I’m going to have to do it again.’
“That’s where we are – take responsibility, get on with it. Do something.”
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