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Sadiq Khan asks Liam Gallagher to help him tackle knife crime

By | Published on Wednesday 26 June 2019

Liam Gallagher

London Mayor Sadiq Khan has responded to Liam Gallagher’s recent criticism of his handling of the knife crime epidemic in London. Arguing that finding a solution requires action from politicians at a national level as well as a London level, he’s asked Gallagher to help him work towards securing that support.

Speaking on BBC Breakfast earlier this week, Gallagher said: “Every time you wake up in the morning, there’s some sixteen year old kid been knifed to death. I’ve got kids that age, out and about and that, doing their thing, living, being young. That freaks me right out – it does worry me. I’ve got teenagers”.

“I’d have a word with that mayor”, he went on. “He seems to not be doing a good job, all them kids getting knifed and all that. The only thing that ever comes out of his mouth is, ‘London is open’. What, open for knife crime and dying and stuff?”

Responding to those remarks over on Radio X, Khan said: “I can understand why any parent – and I speak as a parent of teenage children, as Liam Gallagher is – would be concerned about violent crime”.

“We’ve got to make sure we use that energy to try and save lives in our city”, he continued. “That’s not just us from City Hall … [I need all] those concerned to help me lobby the government. We’ve lost – over the last eight, nine years – 3500 police officers, 3500 community support officers. In the last three years, since I’ve been there, we’ve invested, unlike the previous eight, more than £230 million in our police from council tax increases and business rates increases”.

Throwing it back to Gallagher, he concluded: “If Liam Gallagher and others want to work with me to lobby the government, honestly the more hands that get involved, the more voices that get involved, the better”.

Khan might be waiting a while. In his BBC interview, Gallagher also said: “I don’t hang out with politicians and I don’t hang out with celebrities that hang out with politicians or these fake rock n roll stars that hang out with politicians. I just hang out with me and my missus and my kids and my mates”.

I think that’s a dig at his brother for once talking to Tony Blair more than two decades ago. But anyway, after he put himself forward as the future Prime Minister last week, it would be interesting to see Gallagher actually lobbying politicians directly. It’s not like he could make British politics any worse.



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