Akala calls out double standards during knife crime debate on Good Morning Britain

Author and rapper Akala has hit out at the way race is constantly mentioned when discussing knife crime in Britain.

"When both the perpetrator and the victim are white, race suddenly becomes unimportant," he said on ITV's Good Morning Britain.

Talking to Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid, he was asked if there was a racial or cultural element to the knife problem which is becoming more prominent across the UK.

"You will never be called upon to explain that not all white middle aged men are paedophiles, despite the fact that hundreds maybe thousands of them are convicted of sex offences every year.

"Because it’s evident that not all middle aged white men are paedophiles," he added.

The discussion comes after ITV weather presenter Alex Beresford's cousin Nathan Armstrong, [was stabbed and killed in the early hours of Saturday morning](http://Good Morning Britain weatherman Alex Beresford pays tribute to murdered cousin).

Mr Armstrong, 29, was killed in west London - just 11 days after the weather presenter made his own impassioned on-air speech about street violence.

Mr Armstrong was stabbed around 100 metres from his Fulham home amid reports of a fight. Mr Beresford said on Twitter he could not be on Monday's show as he was at a family funeral.

Akala, whose real name is Kingslee James McLean Daley, said knife crime cannot be explained by race.

He started to give a number of examples where victims and perpetrators were white - including a five-year-old who was stabbed to death by their mother.

Akala calls out racial double standards during a discussion about knife crime on GMB. Credit: ITV

As Mr Morgan suggested knife crime had a strong connection to "young black teenage boys," Akala interrupted and stressed the irrelevance of ethnicity.

The musician said: "Listen to what you just said, when you think blackness is the most important thing to emphasise about these young men, almost half of the young people in prison in Britain, regardless of ethnicity, were in care as children."

The author is speaking out after a string of fatal stabbings blighted Britain's streets in recent weeks, prompting warnings of a national emergency.

The number of criminals caught with knives or dangerous weapons has hit its highest level in nearly a decade, official figures revealed last week.

Sajid Javid has said he is "deeply concerned" by spiralling levels of violent crime and warned that it will take action on "many fronts" to tackle.

The home secretary argued that increased police numbers alone would not solve the problem.

"It's going to require action on many fronts. I wish there was only one thing that could be done, but really many different things need to be done," Mr Javid said.