There was the person with the relative in Los Angeles who was worried about going to London because their friend had seen a TikTok claiming that knife crime in the capital is so bad you now need ID to buy any cutlery from a shop, after seeing stories about restrictions on buying spoons.
Dude… this sounds like someone was taking the piss quoting some 4chan green text shit and someone’s grandma took it seriously.
It’s not far from the truth. Knives, including cutlery knives, are age restricted in the UK, and you do need ID. And this was indeed just made stricter last year in response to “knife crime”, in particular a 2024 case of a teenager circumventing existing age checks for online knife sales and killing three girls. Now you need to provide photo ID both when buying, and on delivery or collection if you buy online.
There’s also a proposal to require stores to report bulk sales of knives to the police. This one would exclude cutlery, but e.g. a sale of a set of six steak knives would have to be reported.
