ZURICH, Switzerland – In a blow to the nation’s reputation for cuckoo clocks and discreet banking, a man with a blade and a grudge has turned a quiet Swiss street into a tableau of red on cobblestone. Three people were stabbed, because of course they were, because the world is a haunted funhouse where the only prizes are trauma and paperwork. Meanwhile, in London, Scotland Yard has announced a review of their knife crime countermeasures. A review. Yes, because what you need when someone is currently being stabbed is a committee with a flipchart and a pot of lukewarm tea. It’s like reviewing the fire escape plan while your trousers are ablaze.
The Swiss incident, which occurred in the picturesque town of Schaffhausen, has left the locals agog. Eyewitnesses report a man in a dark coat stabbing randomly with the enthusiasm of a discount Jack the Ripper. Three victims, none fatally, because even in chaos the universe occasionally remembers to be merciful. The suspect, a 32-year-old Swiss national, was arrested shortly after, presumably while trying to blend in with other men in dark coats looking vaguely murderous. The motive? Unknown. The response? Predictably bureaucratic.
Let us turn our gaze to the Met’s grand review. Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley, a man whose face suggests he has just smelled something unpleasant behind a filing cabinet, has announced a ‘comprehensive assessment’ of the force’s knife crime strategy. This follows a year in which London saw 11,000 knife offenses and a string of stabbings that have become as routine as the 8:15 to Clapham. The review will examine stop-and-search powers, youth intervention programs, and, one assumes, the existential question of why humans keep stabbing each other when there are so many more efficient methods of interpersonal aggression available.
The official line from the Met is that they are ‘leaving no stone unturned’ and ‘looking at best practice from around the world’. Best practice from around the world. That’s code for ‘we have no idea what we’re doing, so we’ll steal ideas from places that also have no idea what they’re doing, but with fancier accents.’ Perhaps they’ll look to Japan, where knife crime is low because everyone is too polite to be caught committing one, or to Iceland, where it’s probably too cold to unsheathe a blade without immediately regretting it.
But the real question is: why do we fetishize the bureaucracy of response? Every time there’s a stabbing, we commission a review, a report, a think piece, a royal commission, a panel of experts, a taskforce, a working group, a symposium, a summit, a white paper, a green paper, a blue paper, a purple paper with silver embossing, all of which conclude that stabbing is bad and we should do less of it. Revolutionary. Yet the stabbings continue, because the causes are not a lack of reports but a lack of hope, a lack of opportunity, a lack of anything that isn’t a bladed instrument and a grudge.
Meanwhile, in Switzerland, the three victims are recovering in hospital. One can only hope they receive better care than the average NHS patient, which isn’t hard since a Swiss hospital probably has beds that aren’t in the corridor and staff who aren’t weeping quietly in the corner. And the suspect sits in a cell, probably wondering what all the fuss is about, because when you’re from a country that makes watches you must feel a certain disdain for the shoddy timing of your own violence.
So what have we learned? Nothing new. Stabbings happen. Reviews are announced. The world spins on its axis, greased with blood and gin. I’m going to have a drink. A large one. Preferably with a tiny umbrella, because if we can’t stop the stabbing, at least we can pretend we’re on holiday from the horror.
