Latest news with #Cunliffe
1News
3 days ago
- Business
- 1News
Ardern takes swipe at Cunliffe over 'tokenistic' comment in new memoir
Jacinda Ardern singles out David Cunliffe, one of her predecessors as Labour leader, for criticism in her new memoir, describing an incident where he apparently suggested giving her a high position in the party list would be seen as "tokenistic". The exchange represents a rare public disagreement between two former leaders and amounts to an unusual moment of political candour from Ardern. She also recounts feeling relief when Cunliffe stepped down as leader after a crushing election loss for Labour in 2014, writing: "For the first time in a long while, I felt relieved." And she also wrote in her book, A Different Kind of Power, about questioning Cunliffe's authenticity and loyalty to the party. Party list ADVERTISEMENT Ardern describes a tense private exchange where Cunliffe allegedly told her he was considering her for the party's number three list position but was worried about whether it might appear "tokenistic". According to Ardern's account, Cunliffe called her to his office after becoming leader in 2013 to discuss the party's front bench positions. "I'd like to have a woman in my No. 3 spot," Cunliffe allegedly told her, before adding: "I've considered you for this spot. But I'm worried about that looking... well... tokenistic." Ardern writes she then refused to make a case for why she deserved the position: "'You either think that or you don't. I either deserve to be No. 3 or I don't. You need to decide." Ultimately she was not named at number 3 in the list, and nor was any other woman MP. Cunliffe responded to the claims in the book with a brief statement. ADVERTISEMENT "Jacinda did not raise any issues with me at the time and has not done so since," he said. "I have quite a different recollection of events." Ardern recounts volatile time for Labour The cover of A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir, set to be released on June 3, 2025. (Source: Penguin Random House/Supplied) Ardern also described her reaction to Cunliffe's infamous apology for being a man at a Women's Refuge event, writing: "I found myself holding my breath whenever he spoke." In contrast to her criticism of Cunliffe, Ardern speaks warmly of her relationship with Grant Robertson, who would later become her finance minister and deputy while PM, describing him as someone who would have been "an outstanding prime minister." She details how she supported Robertson's leadership bid, which included running against Cunliffe, and later formed a "Gracinda" ticket with him in a subsequent bid. 'My intent, never in writing this, was to ever malign' ADVERTISEMENT Ardern was asked about her candid writing regarding Cunliffe in an RNZ interview yesterday. "With any character in the book, for the most part, I've just tried to write experiences so without giving too much commentary on anyone as an individual person," she responded. "There were a few moments that were perhaps a little bit formative in my career, where I was struggling with this question of whether or not I was viewed tokenistically. The former Prime Minister was asked by Seven Sharp's Hilary Barry whether she could return to New Zealand without being given a hard time. (Source: Seven Sharp) "And the story that I shared came up through the course of those events. To not share it would have been a very deliberate edit, a deliberate exclusion of something that really did stand out in my mind. It wasn't just about the person. It was about the moment." The former prime minister said: "A lot of the things that are in there are also a reflection of that period in opposition, which was pretty tough for us, it is fair to say." ADVERTISEMENT "My intent never, in writing this, was to ever malign, but just to share an experience." 'The red wedding' Cunliffe, who now helps run a consultancy firm, has largely stayed out of the public eye since his time as a Cabinet minister and stint as Labour leader though he sometimes appears as a political pundit. He took over the leadership in 2013 following a divisive contest but stepped down after the 2014 election defeat. Ardern described the party's turbulence in detail, comparing the aftermath of Phil Goff's election loss to "the red wedding in Game of Thrones". Then-prime minister John Key and David Cunliffe go head to head at the TVNZ leader's debate on September 17, 2014 (Source: TVNZ) The leadership period was marked by internal party tensions, with factions emerging within the Labour caucus, including an "Anyone-But-Cunliffe" grouping. Years later, just weeks before the 2017 election, Ardern went on to become Labour leader and subsequently became PM in a coalition with NZ First and the Greens before winning with a landslide in 2020. When asked yesterday if she remained in contact with Cunliffe, Ardern said no. But she added that if she saw him, she would still stop and chat to him. "Not everyone do I have regular exchanges with," she said.
Newsroom
4 days ago
- Politics
- Newsroom
Jacinda, the first review
Announcing the winner of the YA book awards. Much of Jacinda Ardern's new memoir reads like an experiment in Young Adult literature—the heartwarming story of a Mormon who lost her faith but held onto her values, and even now continues her lifelong mission of knocking on doors to spread the message that love and a left-wing vote conquers all. The door is America. A Different Kind of Power is written with the American market in mind—she informs readers that Whanganui is 'a town on the west coast of the North Island'—and aimed at a particular kind of young, liberal, educated American idiot eager to drink the Kool-Aid that Ardern goes around dispensing in her various meaningless roles in the US as an ambassador of kindness. Be vulnerable, she advises throughout A Different Kind of Power. Be sensitive. Above all, be kind. I remember the first time I heard her articulate this sort of thing when she tried it on at a rather dismal Labour Party event in the Grey Lynn RSA in about 2011. Labour were in opposition, lost and afraid; Ardern was a list MP, optimistic and possibly insane. 'I've been thinking about a politics based on love,' she said, and even the party faithful looked at her like she was mad. She was an artist ahead of her time. The world has caught up with her and many will likely regard her book as a panacea in America's dark second age of Trump, and our own gormless time of Luxon. Her messages on how we ought to conduct our lives in good conscience and with empathy are well-meaning, sincere, decent, boring, platitudinous, worthless, floating above the page like ice-cream castles in the air. 'To the criers, worriers and huggers,' she writes in her dedication. The tracks of her tears salt the pages of A Different Kind of Power. She remembers watching a romcom as a teenager, and was torn apart by 'big, ugly, heaving sobs'. She remembers Labour losing the 2014 election, and crying herself to sleep that night, racked with 'big, despairing sobs'. Tears, she learns, are her superpower. 'Sensitivity was my weakness, my tragic flaw,' she writes of her uncertainties in her early political career. But the lesson of A Different Kind of Power is to treasure your sadness. Do not harden up; soften up. Dog does not eat dog; trust that bad dogs will die howling in the gutter, which is the lesson of the book's one extraordinary detour into vengeance when she singles out the only person that she sticks it to in 333 pages, David Cunliffe. Alas poor Cunliffe! He was last seen in New Zealand public life brooding on his Log of Doom, in 2014, when he was photographed sitting on a washed-up log on Herne Bay beach the morning after he led Labour to its worst result since 1922. But now Ardern introduces him to an American public who had hitherto never heard of the vainglorious sap and parades him as the villain of A Different Kind of Power. In a pitiless nine-page section, Cunliffe is seen as a phoney ('It was hard not to be left wondering about his authenticity'), a weakling ('No one should build an office of people who simply agree with you'), not worth wasting her breath on ('That would mean dignifying his statement with a response'), dragging out his exit but finally leaving ('For the first time in a long while, I felt relieved'). They are among the best pages in the book. There are a lot of good pages in the book. It's a classy work of literature—it always helps when a memoirist can actually write, and Ardern tells the story of her personal life and political career with skill, wit, and seriousness, and with some particularly arresting passages told in second person: 'When you run for parliament, you wait to find out whether people will choose you, or first, whether your party will. But sometimes, deep down, you already know.' It's a radical departure from the junk of recent New Zealand political memoirs by such as Judith Collins and Steven Joyce, with their lousy prose, unexamined lives, and self-serving comms. Ardern rolls out self-serving comms, too, but she has a gift for bringing places alive, particularly the Murapara and Morrinsville of her childhood, and it's an intensely personal book. We learn of her mother's nervous breakdowns. We learn of her fertility treatments. We learn of her challenges as a parent. We learn of her falling in love and staying in love. Even more so than writing for an American audience, Ardern writes for women. You come to her book wanting to know about her life, especially her eventful six years (Covid, March 15) as Prime Minister. There never was a Prime Minister like her before and there never will be again; she was a disruptor, interrupting the same old political bullshit and since her departure the same old political bullshit has settled back into place. Perhaps she really only stood for a new kind of bullshit and heaven knows she had a genius for spin but the fact of the matter is that she ennobled the human spirit for a generation of voters. Ardern's book revisits the best and worst of her years as head of state. Her account of the mosque shooting is harrowing. A poor memoirist would present a familiar version. Ardern makes it new. There are small, powerful details, like sitting in a plastic chair in the Defence Force airport hangar in Christchurch after visiting the crisis centre. Labour MP Michael Wood gives her a polystyrene cup of tea. 'I'd been surrounded by so much grief. Now, on a plastic chair in the middle of an airport hangar, my own grief came flooding out.' And she reveals that she saw the shooter's 17-minute live stream of the attack. She opened Instagram and stumbled upon it. 'The video's presence in my feed had been so shocking, so viscerally horrible, I'd thrown my phone down onto the floor.' She keeps to her promise of not naming the shooter. She prefers to write of victims and survivors, heroes and sympathisers. Of course these are the saddest pages in the book. The happiest pages are about Neve, and the 'village' of family around her. The book opens with Ardern taking a pregnancy test while Winston Peters kept everyone guessing if he would form a government with either Labour or National in 2017: 'I was days away from learning if I would run the country, and now as I sat in a bathroom in Tawa, New Zealand, I was seconds away from learning if I would do it while having a baby.' Note the editorial geomarker of 'Tawa, New Zealand' for American readers. The book closes with walking Neve home from daycare and watching her daughter balance on the edge of 'the kerb'—the pavement nomenclature signalling she has resigned as Prime Minister, left New Zealand and moved to Boston. Neve informs her mum, 'But mum, we should never give up.' Ardern turns up the volume (swelling violins, a celestial harp) on these last pages of her YA epic, and writes, 'I could have told her I started a fellowship in empathetic leadership so I could keep working with other people who were in politics, but wanted to do it differently.' Instead, she smiles at her daughter, and chirps, 'You're right, Neve. We should never give up.' Readers will try not to throw up. And then there are the chapters on Covid. Again, she pulls readers close, shows us her own bubble, the silent 10 floors of the Beehive in lockdown Level 4, the sense of fear: 'I felt as if I were taking New Zealand into battle. Maybe I was.' She was. It ends with the Battle of Parliament Lawn. Ardern watches the Occupation from her window and realises something has changed, changed utterly. It's crystallised in a brief encounter in the ladies bathroom at Auckland airport. 'I was standing at the basin, washing my hands, when a woman walked in. She was maybe 50 or so, wearing a bright blue stretch top and large and plentiful jewellery.' And then: 'She moved purposely towards me.' And then: 'She stood next to me at the sink and leaned in closely, so close I could feel her heat against my cheek. I learned away slightly, my hands still under the tap. 'I just wanted to say thank you,' she said. There was a beat before she added, 'Thanks for ruining the country.' Then she turned on heels and disappeared into a bathroom stall.' Showdown at the Koru Club lavatories! Shaken, possibly to this day, Ardern reflects, 'What was happening? Whatever it was, it wasn't contained to New Zealand. Something had been loosened worldwide.' A terrible stupidity had been born. The book ends nine pages later. Ardern steps down as PM, heads for Boston's kerbs. Who was that old bag slash rebel saviour who so unsettled her at sinkside? It would be good to know. She helped change the course of history. Come forward, rattling your 'large and plentiful jewellery', and make yourself known! Equally, who is the unnamed National MP who Ardern describes as attacking her in parliament? 'She looked gleeful. She was an incredibly smart woman—self-assured and well respected by all sides. She wore tailored suits and sounded as if she were private school educated. But here she was, hair bobbing back and forth with a flushed face, pointing her finger in my direction…' Ardern is not big on names. She can't even be bothered naming Judith Collins when Ardern writes of slaughtering her at the polls in 2020. Only three journalists are mentioned by name: Barry Soper, disparagingly as you might expect, and Jesse Mulligan and John Campbell, glowingly as you would entirely predict. I make a cameo entrance, sadly unnamed, giving her a sound thrashing at ping-pong. She writes of her 2017 election campaign, 'I shook thousands of hands, gave even more hugs…I gave interviews, often many a day. I answered questions while I was still in my bathrobe, and in the back of cars, and on the emptied stages of community halls, and once while playing ping-pong as a camera clicked nearby. My opponent in that match, a journalist for the New Zealand Herald, also decided to test me about my visit to a Pink Batts insulation factory a month earlier. 'What is Pink Batts made from?' he asked. 'Fibre and recycled glass,' I responded. 'What kind of glass?' 'Offcuts from window glass.' 'And what temperature is the molten glass when it's heated?' I paused. 'Twelve hundred degrees.' He corrected me then: the answer was thirteen hundred. A campaign was a constant test…' I conducted a series of interviews while playing ping-pong with political leaders. Phil Goff was the best player, crushing me into the dust. David Seymour was the worst, flapping his arms like a goose. I enjoyed all of the games but the most enjoyable opponent was Ardern. I always liked her company; she held her whiskey like a good 'un, laughed at herself, was very funny. She kind of makes the same self-effacing joke twice in A Different Kind of Power but both times I laughed out loud. She describes her very first candidate meeting, in Matamata, when her mum and grandma were in the audience. 'My grandmother was not a Labour supporter, not at all. But as I answered the question about climate change, at least she wasn't booing me, like the other attendees. I kept my eyes on her for one more beat. At least I don't think my grandmother was booing me.' Later, she writes about her romantic life, when she lived in London: 'There had a been steady stream of bad dates, like the lovely journalist who decided to move to Africa–or at least I think he moved to Africa…' She is similarly disarming about all her relationships. 'For years my love life, if you could call it that, had been beset by both humiliation and constant failure. At university, I mostly dated Mormons. In London, I'd had two boyfriends who split up with me because of my career….Since entering parliament, the longest relationship I'd had in was three months.' And then she met Clarke Gayford. They were first introduced at the Metro restaurant of the year awards (she went 'with my friend Colin', curiously shaving off the surname of model Colin Mathura-Jeffree). They later have a coffee in Three Lamps (for American readers, a street corner in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby). Then they go out to sea on his boat….It's very sweet, very romantic, and she writes straight from the heart, although sometimes with strange metaphors: falling in love, she writes, 'was a bit like running for parliament the first time'. There is someone else who she gives her heart to: Grant Robertson. It's a book of friendship. It's an entertaining story. Weird little Mormon kid becomes world figure. Such was her manifest destiny ('Sometimes, deep down, you already know'); as the youngest daughter of the town cop, she got around on a green Raleigh bike, and was moved to tears when she heard the evangelical call to arms of Cat Stevens' song 'Peace Train'. She was seldom naughty; the worst thing she can remember of her misbehaviour is the confession, 'I called my sister a cow a few too many times.' As an adult, the only job she had before becoming an MP was in politics. She volunteered for Labour's New Plymouth candidate Harry Duynhoven in the 1999 election, and writes, 'I paid attention to everything, every detail of the campaign.' I can well believe it. Ardern never does things by halves, or even by wholes; a theme of A Different Kind of Power is that she goes the extra distance, rabbits on, bangs the empathy drum through the streets of her book, all hear-ye hear-ye, a town crier literally crying her head off at the sorrows of the world but determined to face its evils with a sopping handkerchief and a set of wet slogans. It's a very Jacinda Ardern book, as in true to her idea of herself. It works. This is going to sell by the shipload and it may even help to make the world a better place. Everyone jump up on the peace train. A Different Kind of Power: A Memoir by Jacinda Ardern (Penguin, $59.99) is available in every bookstore across the land. ReadingRoom is devoting all week to coverage of the book. Tomorrow: a review by Janet Wilson.
Irish Post
29-04-2025
- Business
- Irish Post
Answer is definitely blowin' in the wind — report reveals Ireland's untapped wind potential
IRELAND could seriously boost its onshore wind power if key challenges in planning and grid infrastructure are overcome, a major new report has found. The study, Protecting Consumers: Our Onshore Wind Energy Opportunity , commissioned by Wind Energy Ireland and carried out by consultants MKO (Ireland's largest planning and environmental consultancy), found that after accounting for all environmental, planning, and technical constraints, around 1.86% of Ireland's mainland area remains viable for future onshore wind projects. That represents a lot of energy. That would be enough to support between 5,768 MW and 9,444 MW of new wind capacity — more than double the 5,250 MW of onshore wind currently operational or under construction. To put that in context, 9,444 MW of new wind power would be enough to fully charge every smartphone in Ireland — and still have enough left over to power the entire country, towns, airports, hospitals and homes. Ireland is, in short, one of the windiest countries in the EU, offering a bottomless natural resource that can — and should — be harnessed. The findings come at a crucial time for Ireland's energy strategy. Under the Climate Action Plan 2024, Ireland is targeting 9GW of onshore wind by 2030, alongside major offshore projects. But Wind Energy Ireland CEO Noel Cunniffe cautions that 'offshore will take time,' and stresses that onshore wind must continue to provide the backbone of Ireland's renewable energy supply well into the next decade. Offshore wind is generally more acceptable to residents, with turbines at sea attracting fewer complaints — but sadly the cost of building offshore is vastly higher. In a country where sunshine is more often an occasional visitor than a reliable feature, betting on solar energy alone is risky. Ireland, however, can almost always count on the wind. Since 2000, Ireland's wind farms have saved consumers approximately €840 million in avoided fossil fuel costs. Yet the MKO report stresses that unlocking future gains will not be straightforward. Among the biggest risks identified are landowner consent issues, planning delays, judicial reviews, the lack of sufficient grid infrastructure in rural areas, and challenges in securing competitive market routes. The study warns that up to 74% of the theoretical project pipeline could fall away unless urgent action is taken. The report calls for: Raising the 9GW target to reflect new potential; Major grid investment to connect rural projects; Clear national planning guidance to replace inconsistent local policies; Updated wind farm development guidelines; and A national landscape sensitivity map to guide development to suitable locations. Future wind development would be concentrated mainly in the Northern and Western Region (45% of potential), followed by the Southern Region (29%) and the Eastern and Midlands (26%). Cunliffe said that taking these steps would not only help Ireland meet its climate goals, but also secure 'energy independence and economic resilience' in the face of volatile global fossil fuel markets. With Ireland heavily reliant on vulnerable imported energy — from Middle Eastern oil to nuclear-generated power flowing via Europe (through underwater cables that are now possible targets for malign powers or terrorist attack) — developing a secure, home-grown supply of renewable energy is not just energy-smart policy: it is essential for the nation's security. Harnessing the power of wind — and tides — offers Ireland a clean, endless, and truly sovereign energy future. See More: Climate Change, Energy, Wind Power
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Yahoo
Woman, 92, speaks out after ‘distraction thieves' in L.A. steal $40K necklace
A 92-year-old woman is speaking out after 'distraction thieves' stole a $40,000 piece of jewelry off her neck, in an organized criminal scheme that's recently seen a spike across Southern California. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, who held a press event earlier this week to warn people about the scam, especially seniors who appear to be targets, there have been at least 140 distraction-style thefts in the city this year alone. That number, though, is likely higher due to unreported incidents. For Los Angeles resident Sylvia Cunliffe, she was taken by the thieves on April 14 in Chinatown. 'My girlfriend and I decided we were going to have a jolly day in Chinatown,' the 92-year-old told KTLA's John Fenoglio. 'We go there sometimes.' Cunliffe said that when she and her friend were returning to the car in the 800 block of North Broadway, she spotted a woman lingering. 'I noticed this woman and she's just hanging around,' she explained. By the time she got into her car, the thieves were on her. 'This body thrust itself into my window and starts trying to get to my neck and I said, 'What are you doing?'' Cunliffe recalled. 'She says, 'I have something for you,' and I said, 'Well, I don't really want to buy anything, what are you selling?' She said, 'I'm not selling anything. I have a gift.'' That's when a man approached the passenger window and began banging on the glass, prompting Cunliffe's friend to call 911. 'Meanwhile, I'm being semi-throttled by this woman trying to give me a gift,' the 92-year-old told KTLA. The crooks sped off moments before police arrived, but it was too late for Cunliffe. Authorities say victims are usually approached by thieves of Caucasian descent, sometimes with Eastern European accents. These organized crooks tend to be a man and a woman and, in some cases, children are involved as well. The thieves are known to approach both on foot and in rented vehicles and tend to distract victims by asking them for directions, complimenting their jewelry or asking if they can pray with them. 'Once engaged, they offer a 'gift' of a piece of jewelry and place fake jewelry on the victim's neck, simultaneously stealing the real piece,' officials said in a community bulletin. 'Many victims do not know their property was taken until the suspects have left.' Fortunately, Cunliffe, who said the necklace was worth $40,000, was not injured. She didn't hesitate when asked if the necklace had sentimental value. 'Yeah, it matches my ring,' she said, adding that people shouldn't just act like mice in a hole when it comes to criminals. 'That's why I called KTLA.' She also had a last bit of advice. 'Ladies, if you're out alone, have a swivel for a neck,' she said. 'Gentlemen, guard your ladies.' Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Yahoo
Teens 'buying stab vests online to wear at school'
Teenagers are buying stab vests online and wearing them to school, an anti-knife campaigner has said. Wes Cunliffe, from Newport, turned his life around after being attacked while involved in drug dealing. He believes the fear of knife crime in Wales has reached a point where young people in his area were purchasing items to protect themselves and it comes after the UK government announced new measures to make buying weapons online more difficult. Gwent Police said it was not aware of stab vests being worn or stashed but would welcome hearing more about young people's experiences, while the Welsh government said it took school safety "extremely seriously". Mr Cunliffe, 34, referred to the many high-profile knife crime cases in Wales, including the murder of 17-year-old Harry Baker as well as the attempted murder of two teachers and a pupil by a 14-year-old girl. "A lot of young people I know are wearing stab vests because they're thinking someone could attack at any given time," Mr Cunliffe told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast. "When you see things like Temu come up on your apps, it actually comes up with stab vests. And then they stash them locally around the communities and estates in Newport." In the UK, there are currently no legal restrictions on the purchase and ownership of stab protection products. How being stabbed saved a County Lines teenager MP wears stab vest when meeting constituents 'I carry a saw and wear a stab-proof vest' Mr Cunliffe has been an anti-knife campaigner and youth mentor for about eight years and said he had spoken to more than 300 young people about knife crime. "Young people are telling me they're carrying knives through fear. If there's a bit of conflict between two teenage individuals, for example, then both teenagers will end up picking up a weapon just as protection. "Everywhere you look on social media, you see young people, balaclavas on, attacking each other with machetes, knives, hammers, screwdrivers. The violence is absolutely unreal." He said he went into schools and colleges in Newport, Cardiff, Swansea and across the UK, as well as working with South Wales Police on its Not The One knife campaign. Mr Cunliffe was attacked while involved in drug dealing when he was 16. "Fortunately, I lived, however there are a lot of young people who unfortunately haven't," he said. He added he does not tell young people what to do but showed them his scars and felt he could "understand how they view the world". The number of serious offences involving a knife or sharp object recorded in the year ending March 2024 in Wales and England was 54% higher than in 2016, according to ONS figures and knife crime reached an all-time high in 2020. The new measures announced by the UK government - known as Ronan's Law, after 16-year-old Ronan Kanda who was murdered three years ago - involve rules for selling knives online and tougher penalties for those who break them. Mr Cunliffe said it was a start but not "the full solution", with "a whole community approach" needed. Self-defence instructor James Bourne runs a nightclub security firm in Cardiff and said he had worked with many young people who feared being attacked. He often wears stab protection clothing and said he knew of young people buying it online, including "slash-proof hoodies" but warned there was no guarantee it would protect them, and wearing these items did not justify carrying a knife. Mr Bourne, 51, spent five years offering self-defence classes to children and young people for free, and continued to coach some clients on a private basis. He has been the victim of knife attacks, "because of repercussions of my job", including being stabbed five times while working in Cardiff. He also said one of his staff had to deal with the aftermath of a stabbing while on their way to work recently when "two young boys" had been stabbed in the head and neck. The father-of-five added knife crime would not be eradicated "as long as humans walk this planet", but he hoped to "inspire self-confidence" through self-defence. Earlier this year, actor and anti-knife campaigner Idris Elba spoke to young people as part of the Premier League Kicks programme, which works with 90 football clubs including in Swansea and Cardiff, and offers free football and workshop sessions where participants "can discuss issues that are impacting their everyday lives, such as knife crime". Some of the teenagers at a session in east London said they tried to keep themselves safe by wearing stab vests or multiple layers of clothing, the Mirror newspaper reported. Elba released a BBC documentary in January, which followed him as he mounted a campaign to try to stop knife crime in the UK. Swansea City AFC Foundation, which runs sessions with young people in Wales under the scheme, said it had "noticed that some young people express concerns about safety and have mentioned initiatives like purchasing stab vests". "It reflects a troubling reality that many young individuals feel increasingly vulnerable. To address this fear, we believe it's crucial to focus on community engagement, education, and positive activities that promote conflict resolution and self-worth, rather than self-defence equipment," it said. Gwent Police's Ch Supt Jason White said officers regularly visited schools "to educate and speak to children directly to highlight the potential risks of carrying a knife". Ch Supt Esyr Jones of South Wales Police said the area was "no different to anywhere else" in seeing rising knife crime. He added: "Please think about how your future could be ruined if you are caught carrying or using a knife. "Please also speak to us if you think someone is carrying a knife - it can be difficult, but it will help ensure that that weapon can't be used to cause serious injury, or worse." The Welsh government said it supported the new UK government proposals to tackle knife crime. Deputy head raised behaviour issues before stabbing Exclusion for knives 'too simple', says Estyn chief 'Knives have been glorified on social media'
