You've been given misinformation.

If you're carrying a cooking knife there's no reason to stop you or search you. But if somehow there is a reason to stop and search you, and you have your new knife in its packaging with a receipt the police will say "what's this?" and you'll say "it's a cooking knife I've just bought and am taking home" and they'll say no more about it unless eg you have a conviction for stabbing people or you have a restraining order against you because you've threatened to kill someone.

So convicted criminals and people with restraining orders have to have someone straw purchase the items required to have a properly outfitted kitchen?

In one of the Chinese social credit comment threads someone said "well of course people who haven't run a foul of an authoritarian system generally approve of it" and I think that applies here too.

Precisely. I could entirely legally carry my knife roll on the train up to my friend in Leeds, and if stopped explain "I'm intending to cook whilst there, these are my knives for doing so". The police have every right to corroborate this story, but there is no crime there.

The thing I've potentially fallen foul of is a chunky pocket knife I keep with my climbing/camping gear bag and have on occasion forgotten to remove before going to indoor walls in London. I suspect I'd potentially be told off a bit for that, but again no fear of being charged with anything.

Back to reality, there's no problem with all reasonable purposes to carry a knife, like after purchase or for cooking. There's no problem carrying a Swiss Army knife. The police aren't looking for knives like this, and if they do find one for some reason, they are very unlikely to arrest you.

If you've gone to a bar after your dinner party, and you're carrying the "cooking" knife somewhere accessible (like your pocket), that could be a problem for you.

Children in rough areas should interpret the rules less favourably.

The non-locking 3-inch blade of a Swiss Army knife is not good as a weapon. If you ever need to use a Swiss Army knife for self-defense, flip out one of the half-length, center-mount tools--like the corkscrew, Phillips-head screwdriver, or preferably the awl--and hold the body of the knife in your palm, with the tool extending between middle and ring fingers. Then punch with it, until you get an opportunity to escape.

If you try to cut someone with the knife blade, you'll likely end up breaking it off or closing it on your own fingers. A knife weapon absolutely needs to have a fixed or locking blade.

And that's why a police officer will never have a problem with a non-locking pocketknife. A cop might. A pig definitely will. As long as the latter exist, you might as well carry a tool-knife with a "legitimate purpose" that can also be used as a weapon-knife if necessary, because following the spirit of the law won't help you it a letter-of-the-law bastard gets it in his head to screw you over.

Perhaps you want to increase survival chances against people with legal weapons (aka dogs):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_dog_attacks_in_England_a...

This whole thing is just nonsense and another form of humiliation of the oppressed by "the" "state".

And yet somehow millions of us manage to survive largly without incident into adulthood. Incredible!

It's almost as if this is an incredibly minor consideration.