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No.
Contrary to @BurdensomeCount there is no knife license. The law is that you can carry a <3" non-locking pocket knife anywhere any time for any reason (probably some caveats around airports and the like, or other non-public spaces) and at any age, but under 18s can't purchase "most" of them (effectively all). For all other knives you just need a good reason to carry a bigger knife (self defence/community defence isn't a good enough reason).
See https://www.gov.uk/buying-carrying-knives
>It’s illegal to use any knife or weapon in a threatening way
Nobody is worried about cub scouts in the woods having a dangerous blade while they're making a camp fire. Those kids are within the law to carry a 2' long fixed blade if they're only using it to clear brush. And if you're over 18 you can, like a Canadian at a truck stop, also go into an military surplus catering and garden supply shop and pick out a sweet 24" rainbow punisher medieval zombie joint cleaver to prune your hedges with and the old bill can't stop you.
For some contrast, consider that the people in the land of the free who like to meme about oi yer loicense often aren't allowed to drink a beer in the park, or cross the road away from a crosswalk, or provide hairdressing services without a permit, or open up a shop in their house, or own the kind of guns and explosives that the state would rather have a monopoly on. Different societies arrange themselves in different ways and make different trade-offs.
Adults running around city streets with knives drawn is an undeniable problem and if them being arrested for it means I'm also not allowed to run around with the streets with a knife drawn or routinely carry an 8" chef's knife stashed down my trousers then I guess I'm okay with that.
3'' is tiny though. I have a bigger "knife" in my briefcase as a white collar worker. That being a letter opener.
It is tiny, but if you need something bigger then you have a lawful justification for using something bigger. That said, opening paper envelopes probably won't cut it.
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Yeah, that bit was just a joke, I even called it a "loicence". We do have a TV loicence though that the Tories want to scrap (no joke). Plus no pepper spray allowed either and the Skunk Bike Lock which spray would be thieves with a noxious liquid if they attempt to cut it is also illegal.
Self defence laws in general are a joke in bongland. It makes me understand the allure of gated communities as they allow you to offload the dirty work and liability of handling nasty people onto paid security guards.
The TV licence system is used – and hated – in many other countries (Wikipedia has a detailed list). Japan even has a single-issue party dedicated to abolishing the licence fee.
The licence fee is effectively a regressive tax (which is bad) with its own enforcement bureaucracy (which is inefficient (though speculation about the existence of the alleged detection vans is amusing)). IMO, it should just be scrapped and replaced with a grant funded from general taxation.
@5852a
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I thought about addressing that but felt I should stay on-topic. The loicense meme has nothing to do with knives and is entirely about the funding structure for the public broadcaster, it just gets used as fuel for shitposting because that's what the internet does. "Do you have a loicense to post UK memes? Do you have a loicense to ask if I have a loicense?" etc.
I'm not sure what the full extent of alternatives to TV licensing might be. I assume the discretionary licensing format was chosen as a preference to either advertising or imposing a universal tax and was introduced at a time when the BBC was the only broadcaster offering broadcasts. Again, trade-offs. Some countries choose advertising, some subscription, some a license, some a tax, and none of them are perfect solutions. The fact that attacks on TV licensing aren't advocating for a tax offers some suggestion of whose agenda is being advanced.
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