Question Time: Teacher gives powerful speech accusing government of 'shirking responsibility' on knife crime

As of September last year, there had been more than 39,000 record knife crime offences in the UK in 12 months.

The epidemic is reaching catastrophic proportions and there seems no end in sight with a further spike in stabbings occurring this week, with fatal attacks happening in both London and Liverpool.

Earlier this week, the home secretary Sajid Javid, introduced stronger methods that allow the police to stop and search people without suspicion.

On Thursday's edition of Question Time, a London-based teacher accused the government of 'shirking responsibility' on the subject in a powerful speech directed at Jeremy Wright, the secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport.

What this is really about is the government shirking responsibility for where we really are. I have been teaching for 15 years in London.

Children I have taught have been killed, children I have taught have killed. The reason why where we are, where we are, isn’t going to be remedied by the Premier League or drama classes.

It’s because we’ve had millions of pounds of cuts that exist as preventative services in this country.

The fact that Sajid Javid said this week – I thought because it was on April 1 it was an April Fools’ joke – because the disregard the government has for the people on the ground, doing this work, teachers and nurses who do it all anyways, could be in some way be further responsible, or the fact that children are killing each other because there is nothing left for many of those children is society is disgraceful.

It says a lot about our government. That our government doesn't trust us.

At this point, the audience started to applaud the woman's statement, to which Wright replied with a shake of his head and a should shrug, which irked her even more.

You can shrug your shoulders and that's the point isn't it? We've got people in government that do just that.

They shrug their shoulders. They tell us what reality is like for us, for people who are doing the job.

Then they come out with soundbites, like 'oh teachers and nurses, you can identify who is at risk, and if not you’ll be accountable'.

It's disgraceful. This is why the government is not fit for purpose anymore. 

The clip has already been viewed more than 300,000 times on the Question Time Twitter account and people are in full agreement with the teacher.

HT iNews

More: This Tory MP is being roasted for suggesting solution to knife crime is young people should 'get fitter'