The rapper Giggs has criticised Piers Morgan for his comments on stop and search laws. Speaking in a debate on knife crime in London on Good Morning Britain on 14 May, Morgan said: “You’ve only got to worry about stop and search if you’re carrying something, haven’t you? If you haven’t, what’s the problem?”
He claimed: “If 90% of the knife crime in this capital city right now is being conducted by young black gang members, what is wrong with stopping and searching young black youths who look like they might be in a gang?”
Giggs posted a clip of the programme’s debate to his Instagram account with the caption, “FUCK PUSSYOLES LIKE PIERS MORGAN”, and stated: “You don’t give a fuck about young black youths or wether [sic] they kill each other or not you prat.”
The Peckham-born rapper, whose last two albums have both reached the top three of the UK charts, called out what he perceived as Morgan’s hypocrisy and bias in his coverage of stories about young black British people, and asked: “What the fuck do u know about looking like ‘your [sic] in a gang’. What exactly does that look like anyway you prick, my son is not in a gang, and is a very good kid, but he still wears a tracksuit with a hood and may ‘look like he’s in a gang too’ should he be terrorised by police as well.”
He concluded by citing the psychological impact of stop and search: “Have you yourself ever experienced the trauma or violations, and a lot of the time ABUSE OF POWER of ‘being stopped and search [sic] because you look like...’ Fuckin mug.”
The Mayor of London’s knife crime strategy, published in June 2017, contains the latest available figures on knife crime in the capital, and states that gang-related crime accounted for 5% of all knife crime with injury in 2016, down from almost 9% the previous year. The victims of “serious, gang-motivated” knife crime were predominantly male (92%), young (80% under 25 years of age) and from a BAME background. Just over 60% of knife crime offenders were BAME.
In January, Sadiq Khan responded to a spate of stabbings in the city by promising a “significant” increase in stop and search. His pledge attracted criticism from Tottenham MP David Lammy, shadow home secretary Diane Abbott, and chair of the Metropolitan Black Police Association Janet Hills. Black people in England and Wales are eight times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Research published in June 2017 showed that three-quarters of young BAME people believe they and their communities are being targeted unfairly by stop and search.
Giggs has previously discussed his teenage association with the south London gang Peckham Boys, and the Met’s interference with his career. The Met attempted to warn label XL Recordings against signing the rapper, and used the now-scrapped Form 696 to warn concert venues of potential “safety issues” surrounding his 2010 tour, which was then cancelled.
