The UK is the perfect example of what happens when you put down draconian weapon control laws. Human beings will always, always, ALWAYS find a way to hurt other human beings, and with knives, guns, pepper spray, mace, tasers, batons, particularly sharp table corners, and so on, banned, people who follow the law have no legal way of defending themselves from the people who don't without getting seriously injured or killed in the process.

So here you not only have a country which bans most means of self-defense against criminals, but also encourages victims to simply give up and let them be mugged, raped, or killed, since everything more dangerous than a sack of stale bread is prohibited.

Nothing wrong at all with this move (and the others in the package).
The prospect of putting even more people into gaol can be offset by not locking people up for minor "crimes" or misdemeanors such as posession of cannabis in small amounts.

It sounds as though the UK is going the route of the US in some ways, though for America it is gun crime as opposed to knife crime. Mandatory minimum sentences were all the rage in the United States in the 1990s. Nearly 20 years later such sentencing requirements have been abused by activist judicial appointees while taking away a judge's duty to rule fairly on a matter and take into account circumstance, etc.

As fredgladys said "the jails are already overcrowde­d and the government is cutting staff and not building new jails", I cannot help but think that what was happening in America and how we were saddled with a very corrupt arrangements between private prison and government under very like circumstances.

I would encourage any policymaker to think very carefully before adopting such policies. They are loaded with unintended consequences.

"Up to 400 16 and 17-year-olds could be jailed every year for threatening people with knives under Kenneth Clarke's plans to extend mandatory custodial sentences, figures show."

How will this work, the jails are already overcrowded and the government is cutting staff and not building new jails. Sounds like a lot of huffing and puffing with little thought behind it.