This is the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

I've been a Scout and Scouter, man and boy, for thirty years of my fifty. Former Scoutmaster, albeit briefly. Wood Badge-trained (before Wood Badge became a farce; I used to be an Eagle, course C-28W-93).

And I simply cannot imagine a Scout on a camping trip without a pocketknife. Or at any other Scout function, for that matter. Or even in real life. Carrying a pocket knife is part of being prepared.

Yet official Scoutdom in England seems to think this is a reasonable thing.

And why?

Dave Budd, a knife-maker who runs courses training Scouts about the safe use of blades, wrote that the growing problem of knife crime meant action had to be taken.

"Sadly, there is now confusion about when a Scout is allowed to carry a knife," he wrote. "The series of high-profile fatal stabbings [has] highlighted a growing knife culture in the UK.

"I think it is safest to assume that knives of any sort should not be carried by anybody to a Scout meeting or camp, unless there is likely to be a specific need for one. In that case, they should be kept by the Scout leaders and handed out as required."

In a word: Bullshit.

Why are people carrying knives in Britain? Why is there a perception of a "growing knife culture" there? BECAUSE IT IS ILLEGAL FOR BRITONS TO CARRY GUNS.

And Scouts -- who are supposed to be model citizens who, with the exception of a few incorrigibles who probably should never have been allowed to be Scouts, would never use a knife in a criminal way -- now have to pay the price for that.

But,

A Scouts spokesman said: "We believe that young people need more places to go after school and at weekends, where they can experience adventure without the threat of violence or bullying and the need to carry weapons.

"Scouting helps to prepare young people with valuable life skills, while keeping them safe by not carrying knives."

Lord Baden-Powell is spinning in his grave over the sheer stupidity of that sentence.

H/T.