British Prime Minister: Less Knives Please

Confused as to what is going on? British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, is similarly lost. In an interview with The Sun he stated, ” There are boundaries you cannot cross — and one is this country’s zero tolerance on knives. It is neither cool, nor does it make you safer, to carry a knife. We must ease people’s fears.” Part of his plan is to call for video game developers to be cognizant of their design choices. Knives should be removed from games.

To me this sounds like political buzzword pandering to the reactionary constituency who mistrusts anything they don’t understand. In other words, there’s little bite to Brown’s statement. Oh sure, his plan to deal with the knife problem in Britain is probably something he believes in. And hey, who isn’t scared walking past a statue of Charlie Chaplin in Leicester Square when seven hoodlums are having a deadly knife fight? Especially when said fight is reminiscent of the Steven Segal classic Marked for Death knife fight.

The Prime Minister’s exact words on the issue of knives in video games was, ” “I am very worried about video and computer games. No one wants censorship or an interfering State. But the industry has some responsibility to society and needs to exercise that.” Considering that you’ll find plasma rifles and shotguns far more prevalent in video games, Brown’s request is odd. As I stated above, it has the air of podium thumping for poll ratings. If you asked me whether I thought the Prime Minister was doing anything on the knife problem as I stumbled out of the pub, I’d have no choice but to say he was. After all, he clearly stated that video games should clean up their act. If that’s not being tough on knives, I’m not sure what is.