Fatal stabbings reached a record high last year, preliminary police figures showed today.
Statistics obtained by the Tories from police forces in England and Wales revealed there were 277 knife murders between April 2007 and April 2008, or five every week.
If confirmed, the number will be the highest since records began 30 years ago and represent a rise of 38 per cent since 1999.
The previous highest stabbing total was 265 in 2002-2003 and the death toll for 2006-2007 was 258. Stabbing murders in London rose by a quarter, up from 68 in 2006-7 to 86 last year, the figures show.
In both West Yorkshire and Northumbria fatal stabbings rose from ten to 15 and in Lancashire they more than trebled from four in 2006 to 2007 to 13 last year.
The figures may change before their official release in the New Year if the police or the courts decide some homicides should be reclassified.
But the raw data is likely to reignite the debate about Government efforts to crack down on knife crime. Earlier this month the early release of hospital stabbing figures for teenagers prompted a huge row in Whitehall.
British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith apologised to MPs after she was criticised by the national statistics watchdog. Sir Michael Scholar, head of the UK Statistics Authority, said the Home Office release was "premature, irregular and selective".
Shadow home affairs minister James Brokenshire, who uncovered today's figures, said: "Knife crime is a scourge which claims too many lives and ruins countless others. Yet under Labour it has soared.
"The Government's only response is short term, ad-hoc police operations, the results of which they spin and manipulate anyway to try and get a good story. 2009 must herald a new approach.
"Combating knife crime requires concerted action in the long and short term, not just spin. As well as deploying our police onto the streets as the norm we would introduce an automatic presumption of jail for knife possession - this may be harsh but it is absolutely necessary.
"We must also address the underlying causes of crime - like drugs, family breakdown and gang culture. These are issues that Labour have ignored for eleven years but which undermine all our other efforts to combat knife crime."
With this year's figures added, the average number of deaths from knives or other sharp instruments in the last decade was 241, he said. That compares to 203 between 1988 and 1997.
The figures were released under the Freedom of Information Act from all but one force, Bedfordshire.
Agencies