I need to make a polite request.
Can people PLEASE stop coming out with the classic "you're unlikely to get stopped and/or searched if you're not acting suspiciously" line?
It is not only miles from the truth and somewhat unhelpful, taking that approach is liable to get people into trouble if it isn't closely and inextricably coupled with a reccomendation to stay firmly within the definition of a folding pocket knife (3" or less, non locking).
I have been stopped more times than I can remember and many of those times have been searched.
I've been stopped while driving along (and driving well I might add)
I've been searched in the street (whilst doing nothing more suspicious that putting one foot in front of the other and moving in a general forwards direction).
I've been searched when walking through an area with a football stadium on match day (I didn't know it was a match day) even though I wasn't going to the ground.
You do NOT have to be acting suspiciously, breaking a law or dressed in a particular way to be searched.
As a side request - can we please stop looking at a knife licence as if it would be a good thing?
Looking to that kind of future in ANY kind of positive way is utter insanity. By looking for that we make a whole raft of mistakes, including legitimizing the view that knives are something so dangerous they need to be licenced, they are not.
By looking for that we necessarily refuse perfectly safe people their right to carry a sharp tool too, there are many reasons a non-violent person might be refused that licence and that should never be acceptable.
By looking for that we endorse this "war on knives" which is NOTHING MORE than a smokescreen to get around the complete and utter failure to win the "war on crime"! That failure has come about for a load of reasons, one of which is the simple fact that the focus has been more on the crime and the tools of crime rather than the much trumpeted "causes of crime".
We need to stop being so bloody complacent.
Those of us lucky enough to live in the countryside need to stop saying things which might get the more urban among us believing they are so very unlikely to be searched when that is simply not the case.
We need, even more, to stop making people think that if they don't act suspiciously they won't be searched when any urban area can have mandatory searches put in place.
We need to stop talking like the people who want knives off the street and stand our bloody ground instead.
We have nothing to be ashamed of, we have no reason to want, and no benefit to be gained from licencing and everything to lose when it comes to our freedom to carry a legitimate tool on a daily basis and to practice our hobbies when we can be seen to have "good reason".
While the law has not changed, this guidance is worryingly indicative of the way this society is going, and if those of us who stand to lose out don't do something, we WILL get down to a choice between breaking the law or carrying on as we currently can.
Rant over.