Apparently the number of knife murders in London dropped by 15 per cent between last April and January this year.

According to the Met there were 58 fatal stabbings during this period compared to 68 between April 2006 and January 2007.

It strikes me as being a very odd statistic to put out. How can you seriously put something like murder into percentage terms? It’s not like the annual profit report of a business. What is the Met trying to prove? Are they actually trying to boast about there being 10 less people killed by knives, because if they are it is in pretty bad taste.

You cannot gloat about cutting the number of murders of a certain kind in a given period. There are so many variables. Maybe there were still lots of serious stabbings but luckily not so many of them resulted in death, maybe those usually inclined to use knives opted for a different weapon of choice.

I’m not trying to make light of a very serious issue but what I’m getting at is it all boils down to luck. In fact, if anyone is making light of the situation it is the Met for releasing such trivial figures.

No amount of action on the ground (and the merits of what the police and courts are actually doing to combat knife crime can be debated another time) will ever, in my humble opinion, have a direct influence on the number of murders being carried out. If people are going to murder, they will murder, regardless of what PR puff the police are putting out at a particular time or whatever pointless amnesty is taking place.

Any decrease in murders can be put down to good fortune – and the statistic of less people being killed by knives may well be reversed come this time next year.

Certainly there have already been several knife murders in 2008, although if the police are only looking at April to January then perhaps February and March are ‘freebie’ months where the killings don’t add to the figures.

In any case, even if a random statistic like this was worth bragging about, it still does not hide a very stark and shocking fact.

There were still nearly 60 people killed in London by knives in a short period.

That’s nearly 60 people killed in just ONE city by just ONE method in less than ONE year.

It’s not even all the murders in the capital, it’s just focusing on one type.

Whether it is knives, guns, fists or other weapons, it shows there is a lot of killing going on out there. So much for London being a ‘safe’ city.

With knife crime – much like the Met’s strange blind spot when it comes to acknowledging the scale of gang crime – the police will say there is nothing to panic about, things are under control.

The police will point to a 15 per cent drop in the overall number of knife crimes (10,200 offences down to 8,600) and say things like: "The Met is committed to tackling knife crime through a combination of robust enforcement, prevention and education activity with schools and colleges."

But the families of the 17 teenagers stabbed to death in London last year would probably argue more could be done.

Obviously the police are not alone in tackling knife crime. Parents, schools, youth agencies and society in general must all play a part. But the police approach has to be the focus of attention when the Met are busy putting out meaningless facts and figures.