There's often been amnesty drives yearly where you can hand knives or guns and be free from action being taken against you for quite some time now. I think they started doing them more often when the law changed prohibiting you from carrying a knife bigger than 3 inches.

From my own experience and many I know they would tend to see that spike in knife incidents due to an influx of European migrant workers. The British love a good tear up but I really wouldn't say that many carry knives at all. When the eastern Europeans came across to work though I know a lot of them had no qualms about carrying a knife and using it, I guess it's just commonplace for them to do so back in their own home countries so they do so here too.

I have personally known five friends who have been attacked by eastern Europeans with knives in the last 10 years and I can't even think of one case I know of a Brit I know using one in anger in my adult life. For some reason the press never state much about the attackers either when this happens, ethnicity, religion, or country of origin. They usually just paint it as if it's a Brit on Brit attack by saying as little as possible about the attacker.

"What about a pointed stick?"