Gallagher blames knife crime on Thatcher

Noel Gallagher has blamed the increase of knife crime on the "Thatcher years".

The singer claimed that the "rot set in" when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister and said he was concerned about bringing up his own children in the UK.

"It's horrible. It's horrible. I don't even know what Cameron and Gordon Brown are going to do about it," he said at the Silver Clef Awards.

"It all goes back to the Thatcher years. It's a cliché to say it but that's where the rot set in."

He added: "Me and the missus talk about it at night, about how our kids are going to grow up. I don't know what you can do.

"In my day, status was trying to be somebody, do you know what I mean? Not trying to kill somebody. So how's that all changed? It's really, really scary."

When asked about Jay-Z's performance at Glastonbury, he told The Mirror: "For the record, I like Jay-Z so that's my opinion, everybody."

Jay-Z opened his set with a cover of Oasis song 'Wonderwall' in response to suggestions from Gallagher that hip-hop music was "wrong" for the festival.