A knife crime tsar must be appointed by government in order to "get a grip" on the rise in youth violence, a former Metropolitan Police commissioner says.
Lord Hogan-Howe said a 93% rise in the number of under-16s stabbed over five years was a "terrifying statistic" and "something has to change".
It comes after two 17-year-olds were killed in separate incidents in London and Greater Manchester at the weekend.
The home secretary will meet police chiefs this week to discuss the issue.
Prime Minister Theresa May said she recognised people's concern, but insisted there was "no direct correlation" between the rise in knife crime and a fall in police numbers.
Home Secretary Sajid Javid condemned the "senseless violence", saying: "Young people are being murdered across the country, it can't go on."
The Met's Assistant Commissioner, Graham McNulty, said tackling violent crime "remains the Met's priority", adding officers from the violent crime unit worked extended shifts over the weekend.
He said: "The increased police presence has made a difference with officers conducting over 2,500 stop and searches in the last three days alone."
NHS data shows that the number of children aged 16 and under treated for stab wounds in England rose from 180 in 2012-13 to 347 in 2017-18.
Lord Hogan-Howe - who led the Met from 2011 to 2017 - said a tsar should be put in charge of how money is spent to tackle knife crime, rather than individual police forces - especially when it comes to officer recruitment.
"I'd want to know, week after week, when are you recruiting them? When do they arrive? When do they get trained? And when do they hit the streets?" he told the BBC.
"You want to know day-by-day what's going to get delivered. And I don't get that sense of grip.
"If it's not treated as a crisis, it will take another two years before we see action."
Tsars are unelected independent advisers to the government who help to shape policy on a range of issues from drug misuse to how to reinvigorate the high street.
Officers say Jodie's attacker was a black male in his late teens who stabbed her in the back without saying a word. There are no descriptions of a second suspect.
Jodie's family branded it a "totally random and unprovoked attack".
The Labour councillor for Heaton, Tele Lawal, who attended Jodie's sixth form college, told the BBC's Victoria Derbyshire programme: "She was a scout, loved by the community. To have a person like her taken away - is that not a wake-up call for our government?
"It shocks us all. For me as a councillor, what more can we be doing?"
Next steps
Lord Hogan-Howe said the government and police also needed to:
Tackle the supply of cocaine to the UK from Colombia and Mexico. As the supply has increased and the price has dropped, violence between dealers has intensified, he said
Deter young people from carrying knives. Too many are worried about being caught without a knife, not with one, he said, and the police need better technology than knife-detecting wands and arches to detect them
Combat deprivation, which he said was a common factor in knife crime across the country
Hazrat Umar, 17, was killed in Bordesley Green on Monday; Abdullah Muhammad, 16, died in Small Heath the previous week, and seven days earlier Sidali Mohamed, 16, was stabbed outside a college in Highgate.
Before you try to solve any problem, you need to know what's causing it. The Home Office says the spike in knife crime, and serious violence more generally, is largely being driven by disputes over drugs.
So, with the National Crime Agency, it's set up a co-ordination centre to focus efforts on disrupting supply and catching dealers.
But it's also clear many stabbings are not linked to drugs - they're part of a tit-for-tat cycle of street violence between gangs which breeds fear among young people and prompts them to carry weapons.
There's a consensus that fixing that requires a two-pronged approach. More visible and intrusive policing, such as stop-and-search, to suppress the problem, together with longer-term prevention work (known as the public health model) to identify and support those at risk of being drawn into violent gangs at an early stage.
Where there's disagreement is whether cuts to policing and other public services have played a role in the surge in violence. For ministers to acknowledge resources are a factor would mean admitting their policies contributed to the problem and providing funding to rectify it.
The Home Office set out a range of actions to tackle violent crime in October, including a £200m youth endowment fund and a consultation on a new legal duty to treat serious violence as a public health issue.
It also revealed plans for a consultation to adopt a new "public health" approach to tackling serious violence.
An extra £970m in police funding is also proposed for 2019-20 and the Offensive Weapons Bill, currently before Parliament, will introduce new offences to tackle knife crime and acid attacks.
But London's Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime Sophie Linden said new money was not enough to make up for the millions of pounds of cuts to services that ensured young people did well at school and were not excluded.
"This is a complex problem. It's policing, it's youth services, it's working with parents. We need the government to step up," she said.
Home Office minister Victoria Atkins told BBC Radio 4's Today programme a week of national action in February took 9,000 knives from the streets and saw more than 1,000 arrests.
Business reporter(wp/reuters)::: Britain’s construction industry reported the first fall in activity in almost a year last month, as Brexit uncertainty and a slow housing market delayed new building projects. The IHS Markit/CIPS Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) fell to 49.5 in February from January’s reading of 50.6, the first time the index has been below the 50-mark that separates growth from contraction since unusually icy weather in March 2018.
The last time the reading was below 50 for reasons unrelated to the weather was in September 2017, and February’s number was at the bottom end of economists’ forecasts in a Reuters poll.
“The UK construction sector moved into decline during February as Brexit anxiety intensified and clients opted to delay decision-making on building projects,” IHS Markit economist Tim Moore said.
Britain remains at risk of leaving the European Union on March 29 with no transitional arrangements, though last week Prime Minister Theresa May said lawmakers would be able to vote to delay Brexit for a short period if they continued to reject the deal she agreed with Brussels last year.
Builders said they were experiencing some of the longest delays in getting construction materials since 2015, due to transport shortages caused by manufacturers stocking up on materials in case a no-deal Brexit disrupts imports.
Construction projects such as new homes and office space were also being put on hold as Brexit uncertainty slowed commercial decision-making and the housing market weakened, with knock-on effects for hiring.
Although Bank of England data last week showed a pick-up in the number of mortgages approved at the start of 2019, house prices have been flat over the past couple of months, according to figures from mortgage lender Nationwide Building Society.
Last year construction output rose by the smallest amount since 2012, up just 0.7 percent according to official data.
Construction makes up only 6 percent of Britain’s economy, but its volatility often means it has an outsize effect on the quarterly growth rate of the whole economy.
Prime Minister Theresa May’s top lawyer will try to clinch a Brexit compromise with the European Union this week in a last-ditch bid to win over rebellious British lawmakers before crunch votes that could delay the divorce.
The United Kingdom is due to leave the EU on March 29 but still has no deal in place governing its exit terms, after members of parliament voted in January by 432 to 230 votes to reject an agreement May reached last year with the bloc.
May is hoping to win over enough MPs to pass it, by agreeing a legal addendum with the EU on the deal’s most controversial element: a “backstop” to ensure no hard border between EU-member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland.
Attorney General Geoffrey Cox, Britain’s top government lawyer, is due to meet EU Brexit negotiator Michel Barnier in Brussels on Tuesday.
“The attorney general continues to pursue legally binding changes to the backstop that are necessary to ensure the EU cannot hold the UK in it indefinitely,” a spokesman for May said.
“We’re now at a particularly critical stage in these negotiations,” said the spokesman. He declined to go into any specifics about the kind of legally binding changes Cox was trying to secure.
As Brexit goes down to the line, investors are watching to see if May can win over enough MPs to her deal. If she cannot, then the exit date is almost certain to be delayed by MPs eager to avoid a potentially disorderly no-deal exit.
British lawmakers oppose the backstop because it requires Britain to apply some EU rules in Northern Ireland indefinitely, unless another plan for keeping the border open can be agreed in future. May has promised to seek changes, although the EU has refused to reopen the draft treaty. Parliament will vote on her tweaked deal by March 12.
If they reject the deal, MPs will have a vote on whether to leave without a deal, and then on whether to delay Brexit, probably by a few months until the end of June.
LEGAL FIX
In a bid to win over opposition Labour Party MPs, May will on Monday set out plans for a 1.6 billion pound fund to help to boost economic growth in Brexit-supporting communities.
The Labour Party’s finance spokesman, John McDonnell, said the fund was “Brexit bribery”.
“This towns fund smacks of desperation from a government reduced to bribing Members of Parliament to vote for their damaging flagship Brexit legislation,” he said.
Labour, which like May’s Conservatives has formally backed exiting the EU in line with the results of a 2016 referendum, shifted its position last week to back a new public vote if May presses on with her deal.
As May seeks to win over MPs, a group of prominent Brexit rebels set out the changes they want to see to the agreement in return for their support: it must be legally binding, clear and set out an exit route for the backstop.
But the Daily Telegraph newspaper said Cox had abandoned attempts to secure a hard time-limit or unilateral exit mechanism.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday that the bloc was ready to give Britain more guarantees that the backstop was only intended to be temporary and used for a “worst-case scenario”.
A 17-year-old boy has been stabbed to death in Greater Manchester.
Police found the teenager in Gorse Bank Road in the affluent suburb of Hale Barns at about 18:40 GMT on Saturday.
He was taken to hospital where he died. Two boys, also aged 17, have been arrested on suspicion of murder and remain in police custody for questioning.
Officers appealed for information and said there would be extra patrols in the area.
Supt Marcus Noden said: "We have been speaking to people living on the road as part of our immediate inquiries and we will continue to do so over into Sunday.
"There will be extra police patrols over the next few days and those officers are there to provide a visible presence and also for people to approach if they do have any concerns.
"This young man and his family will continue to be at the forefront of our minds throughout this investigation."
The death comes a day after a 17-year-old girl, Jodie Chesney, was killed in a knife attack in a London park.
As many as 70 of Britain’s opposition Labour lawmakers oppose holding a second Brexit referendum, Labour lawmaker Caroline Flint said on Sunday.
Earlier this week Labour said it would back a second referendum in order to try to prevent either a ‘no deal’ or Prime Minister Theresa May’s deal.
“I think there are something like 60-70 Labour members of Parliament who feel as strongly as I do against a second referendum,” said Flint, who represents an area of Britain which voted to leave the EU at the 2016 referendum.
Political reporter(wp/reuters)::: Brexit-supporting MPs who voted down Prime Minister Theresa May’s European Union withdrawal deal in January have outlined demands for a revised treaty to ensure their support, the Sunday Times newspaper said. MPs overwhelmingly rejected May’s deal in January. Many were unhappy with the “Irish backstop”, insurance to prevent return of hard border controls between EU member Ireland and British-ruled Northern Ireland.
Critics said it could leave the country tied to EU rules indefinitely. Britain, due to exit the bloc on March 29, is attempting to amend the deal to provide assurances that the backstop would not be indefinite.
The Sunday Times said hardline Brexit supporters from May’s Conservative Party had drawn up a document outlining three tests the deal must pass to gain their support.
These are a “clearly worded, legally binding, treaty-level clause which unambiguously overrides” the text of the withdrawal agreement, with language that goes beyond emphasising the temporary nature of the backstop and a clear means to exit the backstop if subsequent trade talks fail.
The paper said the plan had been drawn up with the support of the Democratic Unionist Party, the Northern Irish party which props up May’s minority government.
If May secures the demands, she would win the backing of the DUP and the Brexit-supporting MPs in a vote on the deal which she has promised would be held before March 12, the Times said.
The EU’s chief negotiator Michel Barnier said on Friday that the bloc was ready to give Britain more guarantees that the backstop was only intended to be temporary and used for a “worst-case scenario”.
“We know that there are misgivings in Britain that the backstop could keep Britain forever connected to the EU,” Michel Barnier said in an interview with Germany’s Die Welt newspaper.
“This is not the case. And we are ready to give further guarantees, assurances and clarifications that the backstop should only be temporary.”
In a further sign that former opponents of May’s deal might now back a revised version, Graham Brady, a senior Conservative lawmaker, said he would support it with legally binding assurances on the backstop.
“Once we have that, my colleagues in parliament need to recognise the strength of feeling,” he wrote in the Mail on Sunday newspaper.
“The whole country is tired of vacillation and delay. When the right compromise is offered, we should pull together behind the Prime Minister and help her to deliver our exit from the European Union on March 29.”
British businesses reported their weakest growth in nearly six years during the past three months due to fears of a no-deal Brexit and rising global trade barriers, the Confederation of British Industry said on Sunday.
The CBI’s index of private-sector activity over the past three months dropped to -3 in February from zero in January.
This was its lowest since April 2013, when Britain was still recovering from the global financial crisis. Firms expected similar weakness in the three months ahead, when Britain is due to leave the European Union after over 40 years of membership.
Prime Minister Theresa May has yet to win parliament’s support for a Brexit transition deal although she has paved the way for a possible delay to Brexit beyond its scheduled date of March 29.
“More and more companies are hitting the brakes on investment and day-to-day business decisions are becoming increasingly problematic,” the CBI’s chief economist, Rain Newton-Smith, said.
A survey last week showed manufacturers stockpiled goods by the most on record for any big advanced economy as they prepared for the possibility of border delays after Brexit.
The Bank of England predicts Britain’s economy will grow by just 0.2 percent in the three months to March and growth in 2019 to be the weakest since 2009, even if Brexit goes smoothly.
Britain’s trading partners in Europe are facing weaker growth too, due to trade tensions between the United States and China that have hurt global manufacturers.
The CBI survey was based on responses from 650 businesses in retail, manufacturing and services.
