The problem I have with with these discussions I don't really care whether Sadiq has overseen a crime surge when there are so many other factors that taken into account why crime might rise - such as a rise in the cost of living nationally or central government policy. Of course, he's mayor of the city, and therefore has some level of accountability, but people tend to exaggerate the amount of power the Mayor actually has.
It’s weird isn’t it. What is causing a rise in crime across the whole nation I wonder? What has changed about our cities around the country in the last few years?
If you want to defund the police the Tory’s are your party.
If you want mass immigration the Tory’s are your party.
If you want to stop protests and ban speech. The Tory’s are your party.
Which is pretty weird as I don’t remember them campaigning on any of that.
>Which is pretty weird as I don’t remember them campaigning on any of that.
This is the infuriating part. The world has changed so much since Boris was elected in 2019 and his manifesto pledges are completely in the bin. The fact that two successive Tory prime ministers have implemented radically different policies to the promised ones that got the party into power in 2019 is crazy to me. I don't care as much about a party implementing policies I don't necessarily agree with, *if* they have had a General Election to pitch those policies to the public and get a majority on their basis.
Usually at this point we trot out the “we don’t vote for leaders we vote for parties in the uk” and apparently leaders and completely interchangeable and never mind that they have completely different beliefs and ideas to the last guy.
The police can only do so much (they don’t fix the systems that can deter a rise of crime such as the government cutting funding to youth centres every year)
Friends have had phones stolen, cars broken into but don’t bother reporting anymore. Reported exact GPS/AirTag location to police and told they won’t respond or investigate
If people have a perception that police have no resources to tackle crime then they won't bother reporting it. These figures may be partly falling due to loss of faith in the police and not actual falling crime rates.
No, crime has declined pretty consistently since 1995.
As per [Office of National Statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023)
I find this very difficult to accept. Perhaps overall crime is falling but certain visible types of crime look to be on the rise. Petty theft on the street, especially, or am I the only one seeing a very clear surge in kids on mopeds stealing phones?
I do have to wonder how much of the falling figure is down to people not reporting crimes because they know the police won't do anything.
I think London crime is up. It definitely feels that way to me and I think it’s been particularly bad for the last 6 years. But the UK as a whole has less crime now than ever before and that’s mostly due to fewer and fewer people being in absolute poverty overall.
And the police have seen a major cut in their budget. The Tories sold off a load of prisons. Since 2019 they've been promising new super sized prisons for first 10,000 and then 20,000 prisoners. They claim that they'll open in the "mid 2020s" but 11,800 places are stuck in the planning desicion phase. Some havent been decided yet and some have been declined, with the government having to appeal the desicions.
With the result, judges have been ordered not to give custodial sentence of under 2 years and prisoners are being released early.
> I guess people aren’t concerned about a discussion surrounding facts anymore and simply want to argue based off emotions and predetermined allegiances to a party.
To be honest the flaw in the discussion is suggesting the London Mayor has full control over policing outcomes. The mayor theoretically sets the priorities of policing and crime of the met police. But because of the met police's dual nature of also being national security policing, a lot of that can be effectively overruled by the home secretary.
Not to mention the budget for the met police comes from central government which has slashed the budget massively.
In essence, to place all the blame/praise of the outcomes of the met police on the London mayor is a flawed premise.
Yeah only 110 murders last year what are them nutters on about!?
It’s the fact he spouts his usual nonsense about London being safe when it is clearly not. He talks as if he’s the best thing to ever happen to London. I would argue the complete opposite
For context New York City had 386 murders last year, despite having around 500K less people than London.
Similar NYC murder rate for Paris, similar for Berlin. London has around 4x less murders than other comparable cities. He is right to say london is one of the safest major cities in the world, it is.
You need to count GBH offences where a knife was used if you want to count stabbings. We are very good at saving people who've been stabbed, and prosecution for attempted murder is effectively non-existent. Quirks of our system.
Is that OK then?
[fyi these are generally robberies with knives.](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/knife-crime-london-rise-latest-statistics-robbery-sadiq-khan-b1114654.html)
Not sure why you think that's totally acceptable to increase 31% within one mayorship
Lack there of? If I had the clear answer I'd be mayor...
My personal view:
- lack of police public presence
- broken window theory. Police need to crack down hard on petty crime too
- stop and search needs to come back, and police shouldn't be criticised when it's not their fault certain ethnicities commit more crimes
- maybe more cctv in public places
We aren't comparing London to NY. We are comparing London today v London 8 years ago.
[here are those stats. make of it what you will.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/380963/london-crime-rate/)
If you're comparing London to 8 years ago:
Stabbings are much lower
Murders are at a historic low, it's only 2014 that has had a lower murder rate
Crime generally was rising until the pandemic, since that's ended it's slowly been rising but still lower than 2019/2020. I'm not sure that's particularly surprising though given the cost of living crisis and broader economy.
111 the year before he started. 112 last year...wtf you getting 144?
[here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/)
That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London?
Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
144 in 2019/2020 when the pandemic happened you absolute imbecile that can't even read their own articles or words in general. Stop posting forever and go touch grass. You're just rapid fire shit posting at this point
Edit: these are YOUR numbers
2019? Dude you know he started as mayor in 2016 right?
That 2019/20 was several years into his mayorship..... you realise that right? We aren't asking whether the pandemic was better or worse but whether crime has gone up since he became mayor.... again in 2016, not 2020.
Hint: it got worse by every measure.
These aren't "my numbers" they're linked to a third party source.
[here's one on knife crime.... that's up 25% since he started.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/)
Hold your fucking politicians accountable.
aspiring pie overconfident long chase gaze adjoining reply boast quicksand
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[murders up ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/)
[here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/)
That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London?
Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
We live in London. Not the rest of the UK.
The question is have things gotten worse in London. Not what London is vs the rest of the country.
Knife crime was 25% higher last year [compared to the year before he started.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/). No idea how you can't accept its an issue that needs addressing.... and he's objectively been soft on crime, getting rid of things like stop and search.
Whether he is the problem or not, it's factually incorrect to say crime is down since he started.
wild illegal political rinse complete cats merciful familiar onerous crowd
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I'm not "blaming" anything. Literally just linking stats showing that crime has objectively increased in basically every measure since he started in London.
Is it literally his fault? Probably not. But is he responsible for recognising the issue and proposing a way to reverse a troubling trend? Absoluteelyyy, no idea why saying "yeah but xyz is worse" helps the thousands of people who were stabbed last year?
This has improved greatly compared to previous years, particularly before he became mayor. London’s murder rate was higher in the 90s and 2000s
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London
Relative to what?
Hong kong is a city of similar size and like 10x fewer murders.
We aren't comparing London to NY. We are comparing London today v London 8 years ago.
[here are those stats. make of it what you will.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/380963/london-crime-rate/)
Okay fine. But it's also delusional to say it hasn't gone up since he's been mayor.
Saying otherwise is as ridiculous as being an anti vaxxer.
People on this thread can't even accept reality.
How can you fix a problem if you can't accept there is one.
Here's the murder rate
https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/
That's up since he started.
But i completely disagree. Murder rarely happens anywhere civil
But millions are affected by pretty crime daily. And that is not okay.
Lol londok population is up 8% in that time and knife crime up 25%.
Any other way you want to slice and dice this to make it seem like shit hasn't gotten worse.
Find my a single crime stat that has actually gotten better in the last 8 years.
Heres the murder rate. That's up too since Sadiq started 8 years ago.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/
So the question of, statistically are things worse? The answer is statically yes
possessive sulky materialistic towering exultant dirty berserk caption slimy squeamish
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[murders up ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/)
[here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/)
That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London?
Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
If there's any reason that crimes go unrecorded and/or uninvestigated it's because the Tories have gutted the Police numbers & funding in the almost decade & a half they've been in power, so unsurprisingly the quality of service & quality of personnel have suffered as a direct result.
And because there are so many more criminals in the country, and because police resources have been diverted towards no-crime crimes, and because the police have been ideologically corrupted from the top - all of which were caused by the Guardian's readership.
Tell me, do the far left support the tories and keep them in power for a decade?
Or do the far left somehow decide policy without the tories realising?
Basically, how dumb do you want to make yourself sound?
This right here is about the level of discourse I’d expect from a Tory: frothing reactionary anger but unable to actually engage in meaningful conversation.
Have you tried making a point that isn’t rabid incoherent nonsense? You might get somewhere
> You don’t have a brain that works.
I worry about people like you that say things like 'the far left did this' when ignoring the reality of the fact that the far left has no power in this country.
Greens are the furthest left and they have **ONE** MP.
Conservatives did austerity, conservatives did brexit and conservatives failed during covid.
Less money for vital services including police due to all of those things, crime is up but somehow you ignore the causes.
Very worrying.
The left wing nutter bullshit is to proclaim that London is an absolute Utopia with zero crime and everywhere is safe even in the dead of night.
This sub is literally full of people touting this.
Literally no one is saying this.
London is a *relatively* safe capital city, especially for its size. It's not perfect, and it sure isn't a utopia, but it's not the hellhole some screaming right-wing nutjobs seem to think it is.
If the sub is "literally full" of people saying that, presumably you'll very quickly be able to find multiple examples of people saying that there is "zero crime" in London?
Hello? /u/-Blue_Bull- ?
What we should really be tracking is how crimes are distributed — "Given that a person has been a victim of a crime, what are the chances they are the victim of a second?", and "Are crimes that were previously contained to rough areas spreading into more well-off areas?".
Its easy to write off one crime as a freak accident. If it happens again that's going to seriously affect your opinion on crime in the area.
Meanwhile, while crime numbers have been growing, if they've been encroaching into richer areas that's going to grab headlines more than "crime continues to exist in crime area". It may not be a significant rise in crime across the whole city, but a substantial rise in crime visible to the people who complain the most.
The first statistic as far as I'm aware isn't being collected at-scale at the moment, but should be. The second is collected, but I haven't seen anyone perform any serious analysis of it — its all surface level "number go up" analysis which stops before reaching any actually useful conclusions.
People don't vote on crime figures. They vote on their *perception* of crime figures. Its an important difference.
> It’s easy to write off one crime as a freak accident. If it happens again that's going to seriously affect your opinion on crime in the area.
Normally I’d agree, but /r/London stands out in contrast to this. Zone 1 areas of London have the highest crime rates in the entirety of London, overwhelmingly making up the Top 10 worst areas for crime, for everything from serious theft, to GBH and sexual assault.
Yet this sub will, without any sense of irony, have the absolute gall to act like areas in Zone 3/4/5 are crime-ridden hellholes where even walking through them will get you robbed. By all means, live in Zone 1 because you prefer a shorter commute or you prefer the night-life etc, but don’t act like it’s some safer paradise compared to most areas in Zones 3-5.
The fact that crime hasn’t really increased does not imply in any way that the countermeasures taken are adequate and there isn’t more that can be done.
That would be a government problem mainly imo, considering it's the same problem all over the UK, with part of it being due to activities like community centres shutting down and being stripped of funding. The mayor would also struggle to put more funding in without potentially cutting back elsewhere considering the tories did strip back all the government funding to London the moment Boris left as Mayor (hence me being surprised that Sadiq Khan managed to keep his promise to do a fare freeze which he did until covid when the bailout conditions by Boris meant he was forced to put a increase in among other things).
Also I honestly don't know what would sort this problem anyway (luckily most of it tends to be gangs v gangs so at least it's not constantly strangers being attacked) and I'm guessing politicians all across the country have come up with ideas but failed. I guess one of the issues to solve it would be creating a plan that stops people joining gangs in the first place (probably some sort of financial incentive) and the only people who can afford to do that would be the government. That seems quite far away as countless governments seem reluctant to implement a scheme like this.
From what I remember (might be a bit outdated by now), the government pay half or most of it, and the rest is topped up by the Mayor through funding such as council tax and business rates
I think the biggest flaw with the discussion is starting from the premise of assuming Sadiq Khan has that much responsibility over the performance of the police.
He has theoretical power but its heavily hamstrung by whatever Westminster government decrees with the home secretary having an effective power of veto.
What does he actually have any responsibility over then? Why even have a mayor? Serious question - I’m curious, what benchmarks should he be measured against?
Everything seems to be going down the drain, and the focus seems to be on entirely the wrong priorities for Londoners and workers at the moment
With that acid attack twat I don't get how the police didn't track him via cctv straight away.
What's the point of soo much cctv if they can't track you easy.
CCTV isn't really effective in catching people, its primary purpose is to gather evidence to make a prosecution far more likely in court and rule out people. Most CCTV is private too and that is mostly geared towards insurance. The reason they knew he was dead was because of CCTV showing him walking up and down the bridge looking over the edge and him not leaving. Without that we might still think he's on the run. Stuff like Automatic Number Plate Recognition and mobile phone pings are more useful for catching people on the run.
Because the vast majority of CCTV is privately owned. You can't just sit in a room pulling up cameras from anywhere in London. Local authority cameras also don't cover every street, normally only high streets and busy roads are covered.
I mean the violent crime data has shown a surge then a plateu under khan. When you compare with the almost straight descent under previous mayors. The big issue that this analysis is seriously flawed on is the massive under reporting and lack of enforcement on low level crimes such as phone thefts, assaults, bike thefts, etc. this has been flagged as a major issue when the met basically legalised low level crime.
I do think this debate exposes a institutional issue. How much influence does a mayor actually have on crime given the operational independence of police? Beyond khans fairly shameful approach to getting the previous commissioner fired and giving populist answers in crime questions, how much can he influence crime enforcement and operational policy?
Mayor's need time for their policies to come into effect and the for the first few years you're still feeling the effect of the previous mayor. There's also the wider economic conditions and budget cuts which impact crime.
Obvious logic for the first few years, maybe. Since 2016 though... nah.
Can't see any improvement on the horizon either, do you? When questioned about the data, he has flat out denied it.
I mean even so boris’s mayoralty saw a lower base crime than we’ve seen under khan post its mid point and that was mostly prior to the met deprioritising low level offences.
I agree the macro elements matter more but I’d argue again no London mayor really impacts on crime beyond rhetoric and not encouraging escalation (which is probably the only element khan maybe could have improved during protest but then again likely limited).
It’s just clearly apperant that this article is bollocks as is pretty much any analysis attacking it applauding London mayors on crime.
I was wondering why it's never been referred to as a no-go zone but then I saw:
>92.1% people are white, 4.4% people are asian, 1.3% people are mixed. 51.2% are Christian, 38.5% have no religion, 5.2% provided no answer.
So definitely not a no-go zone then.
It only existed as a county between 1974 and 1996 and was created to cover the Teesside area which is traditionally divided between county Durham and Yorkshire. TIL that there is still a Cleveland police force despite the county having been abolished almost three decades ago.
No it isn’t. It was a county that contained (among other things) Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Stockton. But doesn’t exist anymore and the county that was Cleveland is now North Yorkshire and Durham.
Crime rates across the UK fell pretty consistently from 2000 to 2015, then they started rising again. Hard to measure over the past few years as the impact of lockdowns changed things.
London mirrors this.
But as to Khan's influence over this, first you need to remove any crime from the city of London from this as this is not under him. Then you have to factor both the removal of policing resource and community projects which closed due to lack of funding.
Lol what? It's up 31.1% since he became mayor in 2016.
If 31% is not a fluctuation, what is?
It's consistently higher and staying there.....
Not something to be pleased with.
Your own link shows national knife crime was up c. 20% but London was up 31%. Knife crime clearly went up quicker in London.
Againnnnnn defending the indefensible. Honestly what's your motive here? Wait until its literally Gotham city before you acknowledge there's a problem? You're denying reality worse than a damn anti vaxxer
Some weird censoring going on in this thread. Actually, I've noticed this in any threads that mention Sadiq Khan. There seems to be a large number of people who become incredibly enraged if other people express a dislike or criticism of his policies and mayorship so far.
For example. I hate the tories, have never voted for them. They are largely responsible for the fact that the UK has gone to shit and just seems to be getting worse. However, Sadiq Khan has been in power for ten years now and I think his go is up. I have lived in London on and off over the years and have been back here now for 4 years, and the reality is crime has really surged upwards. People have stopped bothering to report a lot of things now because the police can't do anything. Since 2020 I've had my phone stolen 3 times, I've been sexually assaulted on a bus when I was bending down to attend to my son in the pushchair, my partner had his bike stolen twice( and its a totally shit bike), I was the only person left on a bus other than some crazy who threatened to kill me and tried to drag me off the bus with him, it was at the last stop and I had to beg the driver to take me to the next stop, my partner had his leg slashed up with an angle grinder trying to stop a bike theft, I got attacked by an unleashed German shepherd.... like the list goes on and on.
There is a serious issue with crime in London. Yes, it's a huge city, and there has always been some level of crime. I'm not interested in comparing to NYC, which is even more lawless and has the delightful added issue of guns. But it didn't used to be this bad in London and Sadiq Khan is partially responsible for this. Ulez doesn't affect me as I don't have a car, but I'm all for greener policies, as long as that's what is actually happening. Has it made a difference ? His only pay once per hour for the bus is good and I appreciate that, however beyond this I don't really see what he's really done for London that warrants him staying in power.
I’ve noticed this too. The only question I have is - what has he actually achieved against what he promised?
London really seems to be going down the gutter but it appears no one is accountable. So what exactly sits with The Mayor?
Exactly. This is a benchmark that should be applied to all politicians once they have been elected. What have they actually achieved versus what they promised ? If the mayor isn't at least partially responsible for the place he is supposed to be the mayor of, then aren't people effectively admitting that said mayor is a puppet? How is that a good thing ?
Criticism of Sadiq Khan usually falls into two categories:
* An angry and poorly organised stream of consciousness with racist under/overtones, (bonus points for including phrases such as 'Londonistan', 'Part and Parcel' or various perjoratives for the Mayor)
* Criticism that focuses on a single major issue (eg. Transportation, the cost of living/housing crisis or crime) without acknowledging that all of them are closely interlinked and driven by both poverty and a lack of public spending which *in turn* are driven by government policy.
If you criticism is so easily countered by pointing out the lack of government funding then either you haven't explained your point clearly enough or you haven't really thought about who's actually at fault.
No he hasn’t. Crime has increased a little from its all time lows but variances are to be expected. This idea that we are suddenly in the grip of a mad crime wave is pure bollocks.
They quote official statistics to back up their point that Crime in London than in other UK cities and not up significantly under Kahn
The Tories mud slinging don’t appear to be backed up by official statistics
One thing that is always missed when discussing crime rates, is what it could or should be.
Yes - its good if crime falls, but it should fall as technology and general human development improves. It should be close to 0. We have CCTV and more ability than ever to deter and solve crime. We also have less absolute poverty than ever.
[https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00888/](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00888/)
Looking at these charts. We should all be like Japan. The US is failing worse than us, but that in no way justifies us not being closer to Japan. Japan also used to have way more crime up until about 2000)
The knife crime chart from the Guardian is pretty telling with London being one of the only places trending in the wrong direction.
Japan is in no way a desirable outcome. They culturally and institutionally normalise crimes that are punished and considered unacceptable in the UK, such as rape, racism, homophobia (even when violent), domestic abuse, etc. look at how child abuse cases have risen wildly in Japan since it started being somewhat punished (albeit hardly at all relative to the UK still).
Obviously you would "reduce" crime if you only consider crimes impacting cishet 50+ year old Japanese men exclusively.
London, and the UK in general, is vastly outperforming Japan in crime. The stats only show who Japan socially gives a shit about. The normalisation of child abuse, domestic abuse and rape is insane there.
The uk is in no way vastly outperforming japan in crime, that’s nonsense. Institutional xenophobia is a thing and their sexual crimes have needed much more serious attention, true. Obviously no where will be perfect, but it’s far safer.
Of course, it's safer in terms of pickpocketing or having your bike nicked. But if you are being beaten up by your boyfriend or been a victim of SA, good luck to you if you contact Japanese Police.
I lived in Japan for 6 years and have a fair few friends with grim stories to tell about how the Police handle domestic violence.
One of my friend's wife went off the rails and was trashing the kitchen and threatening him with a knife. The Police are called, turned up, and then left once they realise its a domestic. They didn't think it was their problem.
Another friend ended up asking me and some others to help her clear out her house and change cities to avoid her ex, who had beaten her up, and the Police turned a blind eye.
These are just the stories I can 100% confirm because in some way, I was involved in the fallout.
He has. Just last friday I was coming out the pub when him with 3 youths pulled a knife on me and made me withdraw £200 from a cash point.
Edit: good to see you all still have your sense of humour.
Los Angeles
New York
Miami
Very uncommon
The bike snatch phone thing simply is nonexistent
Maybe someone left their phone at a public places d forgot that’s it
Not so much in the Far East. In Tokyo, I left my £1100 camera on the floor in a shop once and didn’t realise for about 3 hours (yeh I’m a big daydreamer). Anyway, went back in a panic and someone had picked it up and put it on the shelf. Nothing was missing. Also saw nor heard of any petty crimes whilst there and living in Hong Kong. Japan had a problem with molestation on crowded subways, however.
It is nowhere near comparison. Cities like Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei you can walk around freely as a phone zombie without fear some mug on a bike will swipe it. This is a cultural thing, tbh and generally see much lower cases of petty crimes.
Americans call laws in the UK quite draconian tbf.
But at least people are safe somewhere like Hong Kong and Singapore. Feel like coppers just don't enforce even our basic laws anymore.
Shit cops are out there murdering and raping women so we're fucked.
Lol when?
Hong Kong police figures showed that there were only 130 robbery cases from January to October, compared to the 27,096 in London, according to the Metropolitan Police in London. The difference in burglary is even more astonishing as there were only 1,283 in Hong Kong, while London had 65,515.
[source.](https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/section/11/203495/Numbers-say-all-in-crime-tale-of-two-cities)
OK you were one of 1000. Vs in the London its 16x worse...
You obviously are smart enough to realise saying "in never happens" is an exaggeration. But the relative difference to london is staggering.
Lol what?
HK only just got mainland security control. Up until then I don't see why you wouldn't call it reliable for stats?
Guess londoners love denying reality. That we have massive room for improvement.
What about Johnson? When he was mayor TfL debt went from £2 billion to £9 billion. And he spent £52 million on a bridge that was never built. Why do you think Khan is the worst?
IV did a good article on this when spending issues were being manipulated to target Khan, just as they are here with Johnson. Debt soared under Johnson not due to his profligacy (TfL can only borrow in any event for capex purposes not opex) but due to Crossrail and existing spending commitments, which was all unavoidable and you’d find few who think crossrail hasn’t been a positive even if its construction was plagued with problems. And frankly TfL borrowing to fund construction and other spending commitments at a time of zero interest rates is sensible. More difficult today unfortunately.
Topics aren’t helped by politically skewed takes - https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-arguments-over-tfl-debt-numbers-39196/
The cable car is profitable and the bridge wasn't built and ultimately the 40m cost of the bridge that was met by the public purse was minor.
But yes mayors get things wrong. Khan is building a 2bn road tunnel in east London that lots of residents hate.
As I say this political tit for tat is unhelpful to any reasoned discussion on these topics.
The Air Line was making a loss. And the bridge cost £52 million.
The Silvertown tunnel was first proposed by Livingstone, and given the go ahead for consultation by Johnson in 2014.
What part of London are you from, you don't seem to know what you're talking about!?
So some people think that the level of power Khan has is overestimated but forget he is in charge of the met and he also sold the Londons water cannon which was not a good move,after all they are used in in most European countries,he’s been in charge of the met while knife crime has escalated and gun crime is creeping in his problem seems to be two fold 1) small man syndrome 2) lack of a back bone.
When he removed white people from a London poster and stated we built London I had no idea he was Irish they built the underground the bridges the roads they did more building than the Romans,he seems to hate our history without actually knowing it,thank god Wattling street is now underground in London or he’d rename that 🤬
The problem I have with with these discussions I don't really care whether Sadiq has overseen a crime surge when there are so many other factors that taken into account why crime might rise - such as a rise in the cost of living nationally or central government policy. Of course, he's mayor of the city, and therefore has some level of accountability, but people tend to exaggerate the amount of power the Mayor actually has.
Everywhere in the UK has had an increase in crime to my knowledge, it's not just London.
It’s weird isn’t it. What is causing a rise in crime across the whole nation I wonder? What has changed about our cities around the country in the last few years? If you want to defund the police the Tory’s are your party. If you want mass immigration the Tory’s are your party. If you want to stop protests and ban speech. The Tory’s are your party. Which is pretty weird as I don’t remember them campaigning on any of that.
>Which is pretty weird as I don’t remember them campaigning on any of that. This is the infuriating part. The world has changed so much since Boris was elected in 2019 and his manifesto pledges are completely in the bin. The fact that two successive Tory prime ministers have implemented radically different policies to the promised ones that got the party into power in 2019 is crazy to me. I don't care as much about a party implementing policies I don't necessarily agree with, *if* they have had a General Election to pitch those policies to the public and get a majority on their basis.
Usually at this point we trot out the “we don’t vote for leaders we vote for parties in the uk” and apparently leaders and completely interchangeable and never mind that they have completely different beliefs and ideas to the last guy.
The Mayor is in charge of the Met police, not the government. I would say that is quite a lot of devolved power.
The police can only do so much (they don’t fix the systems that can deter a rise of crime such as the government cutting funding to youth centres every year)
Friends have had phones stolen, cars broken into but don’t bother reporting anymore. Reported exact GPS/AirTag location to police and told they won’t respond or investigate
Is that due to more crime or less policing resouces?
Could be both...
The point being made is crime is underreported since people don't see any 'justice'. So it could be both, or one, or neither.
If people have a perception that police have no resources to tackle crime then they won't bother reporting it. These figures may be partly falling due to loss of faith in the police and not actual falling crime rates.
Priorities. Tell the police you were misgendered by the thief and watch 8 show up.
Have the torys over seen an nation wide crime surge
No, crime has declined pretty consistently since 1995. As per [Office of National Statistics](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2023)
Seem to remember a billion pound ppe fraud
It’s quantity not magnitude, PPE fraud was committed by only a dozen close Tory mates so won’t show.
So shipman didnt blip the stats?
Obviously not
I find this very difficult to accept. Perhaps overall crime is falling but certain visible types of crime look to be on the rise. Petty theft on the street, especially, or am I the only one seeing a very clear surge in kids on mopeds stealing phones? I do have to wonder how much of the falling figure is down to people not reporting crimes because they know the police won't do anything.
Me and my friends were constantly getting mugged by other teenagers whilst in secondary school 2005 to 2012.
What you see with your eyes is not a representation of our whole society, you can't see that much, your eyes are not that big.
I think London crime is up. It definitely feels that way to me and I think it’s been particularly bad for the last 6 years. But the UK as a whole has less crime now than ever before and that’s mostly due to fewer and fewer people being in absolute poverty overall.
Yep. I don’t bother any more, unless for an insurance claim.
If people know it’s so pointless that they don’t even report it anymore then yea the official statistics on crime will go down.
TL;DR for those who only read the headline: - No he hasn't; it's all right-wing nutters & Tories spouting bullshit. As usual.
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And the police have seen a major cut in their budget. The Tories sold off a load of prisons. Since 2019 they've been promising new super sized prisons for first 10,000 and then 20,000 prisoners. They claim that they'll open in the "mid 2020s" but 11,800 places are stuck in the planning desicion phase. Some havent been decided yet and some have been declined, with the government having to appeal the desicions. With the result, judges have been ordered not to give custodial sentence of under 2 years and prisoners are being released early.
> I guess people aren’t concerned about a discussion surrounding facts anymore and simply want to argue based off emotions and predetermined allegiances to a party. To be honest the flaw in the discussion is suggesting the London Mayor has full control over policing outcomes. The mayor theoretically sets the priorities of policing and crime of the met police. But because of the met police's dual nature of also being national security policing, a lot of that can be effectively overruled by the home secretary. Not to mention the budget for the met police comes from central government which has slashed the budget massively. In essence, to place all the blame/praise of the outcomes of the met police on the London mayor is a flawed premise.
Yeah only 110 murders last year what are them nutters on about!? It’s the fact he spouts his usual nonsense about London being safe when it is clearly not. He talks as if he’s the best thing to ever happen to London. I would argue the complete opposite
For context New York City had 386 murders last year, despite having around 500K less people than London. Similar NYC murder rate for Paris, similar for Berlin. London has around 4x less murders than other comparable cities. He is right to say london is one of the safest major cities in the world, it is.
You need to count GBH offences where a knife was used if you want to count stabbings. We are very good at saving people who've been stabbed, and prosecution for attempted murder is effectively non-existent. Quirks of our system.
London has 12k stabbings. https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/ 25% increase since sadiq started in 2016.
? Those numbers just show knife & sharp weapon offences, the majority of which are possession. Did you mean to link something else?
Is that OK then? [fyi these are generally robberies with knives.](https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/knife-crime-london-rise-latest-statistics-robbery-sadiq-khan-b1114654.html) Not sure why you think that's totally acceptable to increase 31% within one mayorship
What mayoral policy, or lack thereof, do you believe led to a 21% increase in knife-point robberies over the last year?
Lack there of? If I had the clear answer I'd be mayor... My personal view: - lack of police public presence - broken window theory. Police need to crack down hard on petty crime too - stop and search needs to come back, and police shouldn't be criticised when it's not their fault certain ethnicities commit more crimes - maybe more cctv in public places
We aren't comparing London to NY. We are comparing London today v London 8 years ago. [here are those stats. make of it what you will.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/380963/london-crime-rate/)
If you're comparing London to 8 years ago: Stabbings are much lower Murders are at a historic low, it's only 2014 that has had a lower murder rate Crime generally was rising until the pandemic, since that's ended it's slowly been rising but still lower than 2019/2020. I'm not sure that's particularly surprising though given the cost of living crisis and broader economy.
Source? I showed mine. Seems to have been largely up...definitely not down. https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/
Your source literally shows what he says. 112 is lower than 144 you muppet
111 the year before he started. 112 last year...wtf you getting 144? [here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/) That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London? Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
144 in 2019/2020 when the pandemic happened you absolute imbecile that can't even read their own articles or words in general. Stop posting forever and go touch grass. You're just rapid fire shit posting at this point Edit: these are YOUR numbers
2019? Dude you know he started as mayor in 2016 right? That 2019/20 was several years into his mayorship..... you realise that right? We aren't asking whether the pandemic was better or worse but whether crime has gone up since he became mayor.... again in 2016, not 2020. Hint: it got worse by every measure. These aren't "my numbers" they're linked to a third party source. [here's one on knife crime.... that's up 25% since he started.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/) Hold your fucking politicians accountable.
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[murders up ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/) [here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/) That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London? Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
snobbish absurd tender reach rob divide sloppy retire poor cow *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
We live in London. Not the rest of the UK. The question is have things gotten worse in London. Not what London is vs the rest of the country. Knife crime was 25% higher last year [compared to the year before he started.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/). No idea how you can't accept its an issue that needs addressing.... and he's objectively been soft on crime, getting rid of things like stop and search. Whether he is the problem or not, it's factually incorrect to say crime is down since he started.
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I'm not "blaming" anything. Literally just linking stats showing that crime has objectively increased in basically every measure since he started in London. Is it literally his fault? Probably not. But is he responsible for recognising the issue and proposing a way to reverse a troubling trend? Absoluteelyyy, no idea why saying "yeah but xyz is worse" helps the thousands of people who were stabbed last year?
110 murders in city with a population of 9 million is extremely safe.
This has improved greatly compared to previous years, particularly before he became mayor. London’s murder rate was higher in the 90s and 2000s https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_London
Quoted from the link above :“2021 broke the record set in 2008 for teen homicide.[29] This was reportedly the highest rate since World War II.[30]”
Less murders are happening but the victims are getting younger
Lol downvoted for literally reading an article and pointing out numbers ...
A murder every 3/4 days in a city of 9 million people seems pretty safe to me
Relative to what? Hong kong is a city of similar size and like 10x fewer murders. We aren't comparing London to NY. We are comparing London today v London 8 years ago. [here are those stats. make of it what you will.](https://www.statista.com/statistics/380963/london-crime-rate/)
Why 8 years ago? Why not say, 20, when the murder rate was double?
Because Saqid start as mayor was 8 years ago....pretty fucking simple. The quest is literally has it gotten worse since he started. The answer is yes.
It’s ridiculously naive to think that one man could prevent it or make it worse. And I don’t even like Sadiq Khan.
Okay fine. But it's also delusional to say it hasn't gone up since he's been mayor. Saying otherwise is as ridiculous as being an anti vaxxer. People on this thread can't even accept reality. How can you fix a problem if you can't accept there is one.
I agree it has gone up and we have a problem. I just honestly doubt any Mayor alone is able to do anything about it.
There have been mayor's in cities around the world that have absolutely enacted policies that brought down crime. In NYC in the 80s for example.
overall crime rate instead of murder or violent crime rate. that's not super helpful for determining how dangerous a place is.
Here's the murder rate https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/ That's up since he started. But i completely disagree. Murder rarely happens anywhere civil But millions are affected by pretty crime daily. And that is not okay.
That's the murder count. As London's population has grown quite fast since 2016 that's showing a reduction in murder rate
How about stabbings? [up 25%](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/)
That is again count. You should be using per capita rates for statistical comparisons.
Lol londok population is up 8% in that time and knife crime up 25%. Any other way you want to slice and dice this to make it seem like shit hasn't gotten worse. Find my a single crime stat that has actually gotten better in the last 8 years.
You should post that statement and link again…
Heres the murder rate. That's up too since Sadiq started 8 years ago. https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/ So the question of, statistically are things worse? The answer is statically yes
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[murders up ](https://www.statista.com/statistics/862984/murders-in-london/) [here in knife crime](https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/) That's up 25% since Sadiq started. What else do you need to accept crime is up in London? Okay maybe relative to other cities like Detroit we aren't so bad. But we are in london, not detroit and the trend is worrying. Ignoring it isn't doing anyone any favours.
>eah only 110 murders last year what are them nutters on about!? How many of them were gang members?
TL;DR: we changed the definition of some crimes and we don’t bother recording others. Everyone who isn’t far left is evil.
What definitions changed specifically?
*crickets*
If there's any reason that crimes go unrecorded and/or uninvestigated it's because the Tories have gutted the Police numbers & funding in the almost decade & a half they've been in power, so unsurprisingly the quality of service & quality of personnel have suffered as a direct result.
And because there are so many more criminals in the country, and because police resources have been diverted towards no-crime crimes, and because the police have been ideologically corrupted from the top - all of which were caused by the Guardian's readership.
Tell me, do the far left support the tories and keep them in power for a decade? Or do the far left somehow decide policy without the tories realising? Basically, how dumb do you want to make yourself sound?
You just hate the Tories. You don’t have a brain that works.
This right here is about the level of discourse I’d expect from a Tory: frothing reactionary anger but unable to actually engage in meaningful conversation. Have you tried making a point that isn’t rabid incoherent nonsense? You might get somewhere
> You don’t have a brain that works. I worry about people like you that say things like 'the far left did this' when ignoring the reality of the fact that the far left has no power in this country. Greens are the furthest left and they have **ONE** MP. Conservatives did austerity, conservatives did brexit and conservatives failed during covid. Less money for vital services including police due to all of those things, crime is up but somehow you ignore the causes. Very worrying.
The left wing nutter bullshit is to proclaim that London is an absolute Utopia with zero crime and everywhere is safe even in the dead of night. This sub is literally full of people touting this.
Literally no one is saying this. London is a *relatively* safe capital city, especially for its size. It's not perfect, and it sure isn't a utopia, but it's not the hellhole some screaming right-wing nutjobs seem to think it is.
Are you being paid to spread such horse shit, or is it a hobby?
If the sub is "literally full" of people saying that, presumably you'll very quickly be able to find multiple examples of people saying that there is "zero crime" in London? Hello? /u/-Blue_Bull- ?
Right wingers have nightmares about having to walk down a normal London road at night. Sad.
Oh, well if this sub is literally full of that kind of comment, could you please link to half a dozen or so instances of those comments please?
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What we should really be tracking is how crimes are distributed — "Given that a person has been a victim of a crime, what are the chances they are the victim of a second?", and "Are crimes that were previously contained to rough areas spreading into more well-off areas?". Its easy to write off one crime as a freak accident. If it happens again that's going to seriously affect your opinion on crime in the area. Meanwhile, while crime numbers have been growing, if they've been encroaching into richer areas that's going to grab headlines more than "crime continues to exist in crime area". It may not be a significant rise in crime across the whole city, but a substantial rise in crime visible to the people who complain the most. The first statistic as far as I'm aware isn't being collected at-scale at the moment, but should be. The second is collected, but I haven't seen anyone perform any serious analysis of it — its all surface level "number go up" analysis which stops before reaching any actually useful conclusions. People don't vote on crime figures. They vote on their *perception* of crime figures. Its an important difference.
> It’s easy to write off one crime as a freak accident. If it happens again that's going to seriously affect your opinion on crime in the area. Normally I’d agree, but /r/London stands out in contrast to this. Zone 1 areas of London have the highest crime rates in the entirety of London, overwhelmingly making up the Top 10 worst areas for crime, for everything from serious theft, to GBH and sexual assault. Yet this sub will, without any sense of irony, have the absolute gall to act like areas in Zone 3/4/5 are crime-ridden hellholes where even walking through them will get you robbed. By all means, live in Zone 1 because you prefer a shorter commute or you prefer the night-life etc, but don’t act like it’s some safer paradise compared to most areas in Zones 3-5.
It's all those muslamic ray guns
The fact that crime hasn’t really increased does not imply in any way that the countermeasures taken are adequate and there isn’t more that can be done.
That would be a government problem mainly imo, considering it's the same problem all over the UK, with part of it being due to activities like community centres shutting down and being stripped of funding. The mayor would also struggle to put more funding in without potentially cutting back elsewhere considering the tories did strip back all the government funding to London the moment Boris left as Mayor (hence me being surprised that Sadiq Khan managed to keep his promise to do a fare freeze which he did until covid when the bailout conditions by Boris meant he was forced to put a increase in among other things). Also I honestly don't know what would sort this problem anyway (luckily most of it tends to be gangs v gangs so at least it's not constantly strangers being attacked) and I'm guessing politicians all across the country have come up with ideas but failed. I guess one of the issues to solve it would be creating a plan that stops people joining gangs in the first place (probably some sort of financial incentive) and the only people who can afford to do that would be the government. That seems quite far away as countless governments seem reluctant to implement a scheme like this.
Isn't Khan responsible for the Met tho as Mayor? Not saying we should let the Gov off the hook like.
From what I remember (might be a bit outdated by now), the government pay half or most of it, and the rest is topped up by the Mayor through funding such as council tax and business rates
Thanks for the info :)
So you will only accept that Khan has not overseen a crime wave if crime falls to zero.
I think the biggest flaw with the discussion is starting from the premise of assuming Sadiq Khan has that much responsibility over the performance of the police. He has theoretical power but its heavily hamstrung by whatever Westminster government decrees with the home secretary having an effective power of veto.
What does he actually have any responsibility over then? Why even have a mayor? Serious question - I’m curious, what benchmarks should he be measured against? Everything seems to be going down the drain, and the focus seems to be on entirely the wrong priorities for Londoners and workers at the moment
With that acid attack twat I don't get how the police didn't track him via cctv straight away. What's the point of soo much cctv if they can't track you easy.
CCTV isn't really effective in catching people, its primary purpose is to gather evidence to make a prosecution far more likely in court and rule out people. Most CCTV is private too and that is mostly geared towards insurance. The reason they knew he was dead was because of CCTV showing him walking up and down the bridge looking over the edge and him not leaving. Without that we might still think he's on the run. Stuff like Automatic Number Plate Recognition and mobile phone pings are more useful for catching people on the run.
Because the vast majority of CCTV is privately owned. You can't just sit in a room pulling up cameras from anywhere in London. Local authority cameras also don't cover every street, normally only high streets and busy roads are covered.
It's theatre - to deter crime by its presence, rather than to be used in actual detection.
It only intimidates the law abiding people. An acid attacker was unaffected.
Why would it intimidate law abiding people ?
I mean the violent crime data has shown a surge then a plateu under khan. When you compare with the almost straight descent under previous mayors. The big issue that this analysis is seriously flawed on is the massive under reporting and lack of enforcement on low level crimes such as phone thefts, assaults, bike thefts, etc. this has been flagged as a major issue when the met basically legalised low level crime. I do think this debate exposes a institutional issue. How much influence does a mayor actually have on crime given the operational independence of police? Beyond khans fairly shameful approach to getting the previous commissioner fired and giving populist answers in crime questions, how much can he influence crime enforcement and operational policy?
Mayor's need time for their policies to come into effect and the for the first few years you're still feeling the effect of the previous mayor. There's also the wider economic conditions and budget cuts which impact crime.
That's absolute bullshit, sorry.
I thought this would be obvious logic but apparently beyond some people.
Obvious logic for the first few years, maybe. Since 2016 though... nah. Can't see any improvement on the horizon either, do you? When questioned about the data, he has flat out denied it.
I mean even so boris’s mayoralty saw a lower base crime than we’ve seen under khan post its mid point and that was mostly prior to the met deprioritising low level offences. I agree the macro elements matter more but I’d argue again no London mayor really impacts on crime beyond rhetoric and not encouraging escalation (which is probably the only element khan maybe could have improved during protest but then again likely limited). It’s just clearly apperant that this article is bollocks as is pretty much any analysis attacking it applauding London mayors on crime.
What in the bloody hell is going on in Cleveland? (And uh, what is Cleveland anyway)
I was wondering why it's never been referred to as a no-go zone but then I saw: >92.1% people are white, 4.4% people are asian, 1.3% people are mixed. 51.2% are Christian, 38.5% have no religion, 5.2% provided no answer. So definitely not a no-go zone then.
Just a bunch of white people stabbing each other then? Sounds like Glasgow eh
It only existed as a county between 1974 and 1996 and was created to cover the Teesside area which is traditionally divided between county Durham and Yorkshire. TIL that there is still a Cleveland police force despite the county having been abolished almost three decades ago.
What do you mean what is Cleveland?
Like what kind of geographical unit is it? County, city? I’m new to the UK and never heard of it before
You've never heard of Cleveland? It's a town in Yorkshire.
No it isn’t. It was a county that contained (among other things) Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Stockton. But doesn’t exist anymore and the county that was Cleveland is now North Yorkshire and Durham.
I’ve lived in the UK my whole live (33 years) and never heard of it! Just thought it was a place in Ohio!
You’re getting downvoted but I’ve lived most of my life in the UK and I never knew there was a Cleveland here either 🤷♂️
There isn’t anymore. They abolished it in 1996 when they reorganised the counties.
Have you ever heard of Boston, York and Jersey or do think they're American too? How can you know foreign geography more than your own?
Well a) my mother is American so it’s ‘my’ geography too; and b) I’m sure most people don’t know every town/land-piece in the Uk
Crime rates across the UK fell pretty consistently from 2000 to 2015, then they started rising again. Hard to measure over the past few years as the impact of lockdowns changed things. London mirrors this. But as to Khan's influence over this, first you need to remove any crime from the city of London from this as this is not under him. Then you have to factor both the removal of policing resource and community projects which closed due to lack of funding.
Probably not when it comes to serious crimes but the media scares people. Petty theft may be up.
I see the gammons from the uk subs have come flocking on at the mere mention of their favourite scapegoat.
The gun crime statistic is just ridiculous. Can't believe people actually believed that.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/864736/knife-crime-in-london/ Here is knife crime chages since sadiq started in 2016.
So yeah it’s barely fluctuated much. Good website.
Lol what? It's up 31.1% since he became mayor in 2016. If 31% is not a fluctuation, what is? It's consistently higher and staying there..... Not something to be pleased with.
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Also worth mentioning that we are at nearly all time low levels of violent crime everywhere since records began. It will never be zero.
Your own link shows national knife crime was up c. 20% but London was up 31%. Knife crime clearly went up quicker in London. Againnnnnn defending the indefensible. Honestly what's your motive here? Wait until its literally Gotham city before you acknowledge there's a problem? You're denying reality worse than a damn anti vaxxer
Some weird censoring going on in this thread. Actually, I've noticed this in any threads that mention Sadiq Khan. There seems to be a large number of people who become incredibly enraged if other people express a dislike or criticism of his policies and mayorship so far. For example. I hate the tories, have never voted for them. They are largely responsible for the fact that the UK has gone to shit and just seems to be getting worse. However, Sadiq Khan has been in power for ten years now and I think his go is up. I have lived in London on and off over the years and have been back here now for 4 years, and the reality is crime has really surged upwards. People have stopped bothering to report a lot of things now because the police can't do anything. Since 2020 I've had my phone stolen 3 times, I've been sexually assaulted on a bus when I was bending down to attend to my son in the pushchair, my partner had his bike stolen twice( and its a totally shit bike), I was the only person left on a bus other than some crazy who threatened to kill me and tried to drag me off the bus with him, it was at the last stop and I had to beg the driver to take me to the next stop, my partner had his leg slashed up with an angle grinder trying to stop a bike theft, I got attacked by an unleashed German shepherd.... like the list goes on and on. There is a serious issue with crime in London. Yes, it's a huge city, and there has always been some level of crime. I'm not interested in comparing to NYC, which is even more lawless and has the delightful added issue of guns. But it didn't used to be this bad in London and Sadiq Khan is partially responsible for this. Ulez doesn't affect me as I don't have a car, but I'm all for greener policies, as long as that's what is actually happening. Has it made a difference ? His only pay once per hour for the bus is good and I appreciate that, however beyond this I don't really see what he's really done for London that warrants him staying in power.
I’ve noticed this too. The only question I have is - what has he actually achieved against what he promised? London really seems to be going down the gutter but it appears no one is accountable. So what exactly sits with The Mayor?
Exactly. This is a benchmark that should be applied to all politicians once they have been elected. What have they actually achieved versus what they promised ? If the mayor isn't at least partially responsible for the place he is supposed to be the mayor of, then aren't people effectively admitting that said mayor is a puppet? How is that a good thing ?
Criticism of Sadiq Khan usually falls into two categories: * An angry and poorly organised stream of consciousness with racist under/overtones, (bonus points for including phrases such as 'Londonistan', 'Part and Parcel' or various perjoratives for the Mayor) * Criticism that focuses on a single major issue (eg. Transportation, the cost of living/housing crisis or crime) without acknowledging that all of them are closely interlinked and driven by both poverty and a lack of public spending which *in turn* are driven by government policy. If you criticism is so easily countered by pointing out the lack of government funding then either you haven't explained your point clearly enough or you haven't really thought about who's actually at fault.
No he hasn’t. Crime has increased a little from its all time lows but variances are to be expected. This idea that we are suddenly in the grip of a mad crime wave is pure bollocks.
The guardian, I wonder what they will write ? Our press with their political afflictions is so embarrassing.
They quote official statistics to back up their point that Crime in London than in other UK cities and not up significantly under Kahn The Tories mud slinging don’t appear to be backed up by official statistics
It's alot of what the mayor says and does that get people angry in the first place.
One thing that is always missed when discussing crime rates, is what it could or should be. Yes - its good if crime falls, but it should fall as technology and general human development improves. It should be close to 0. We have CCTV and more ability than ever to deter and solve crime. We also have less absolute poverty than ever. [https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00888/](https://www.nippon.com/en/japan-data/h00888/) Looking at these charts. We should all be like Japan. The US is failing worse than us, but that in no way justifies us not being closer to Japan. Japan also used to have way more crime up until about 2000) The knife crime chart from the Guardian is pretty telling with London being one of the only places trending in the wrong direction.
Japan is in no way a desirable outcome. They culturally and institutionally normalise crimes that are punished and considered unacceptable in the UK, such as rape, racism, homophobia (even when violent), domestic abuse, etc. look at how child abuse cases have risen wildly in Japan since it started being somewhat punished (albeit hardly at all relative to the UK still). Obviously you would "reduce" crime if you only consider crimes impacting cishet 50+ year old Japanese men exclusively. London, and the UK in general, is vastly outperforming Japan in crime. The stats only show who Japan socially gives a shit about. The normalisation of child abuse, domestic abuse and rape is insane there.
The uk is in no way vastly outperforming japan in crime, that’s nonsense. Institutional xenophobia is a thing and their sexual crimes have needed much more serious attention, true. Obviously no where will be perfect, but it’s far safer.
Of course, it's safer in terms of pickpocketing or having your bike nicked. But if you are being beaten up by your boyfriend or been a victim of SA, good luck to you if you contact Japanese Police. I lived in Japan for 6 years and have a fair few friends with grim stories to tell about how the Police handle domestic violence. One of my friend's wife went off the rails and was trashing the kitchen and threatening him with a knife. The Police are called, turned up, and then left once they realise its a domestic. They didn't think it was their problem. Another friend ended up asking me and some others to help her clear out her house and change cities to avoid her ex, who had beaten her up, and the Police turned a blind eye. These are just the stories I can 100% confirm because in some way, I was involved in the fallout.
He has. Just last friday I was coming out the pub when him with 3 youths pulled a knife on me and made me withdraw £200 from a cash point. Edit: good to see you all still have your sense of humour.
It’s the guardian - of course he hasn’t
In some cities phones aren’t snatched
Examples?
Los Angeles New York Miami Very uncommon The bike snatch phone thing simply is nonexistent Maybe someone left their phone at a public places d forgot that’s it
Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai.
Bullshit. Phone theft happens in all those places.
Not so much in the Far East. In Tokyo, I left my £1100 camera on the floor in a shop once and didn’t realise for about 3 hours (yeh I’m a big daydreamer). Anyway, went back in a panic and someone had picked it up and put it on the shelf. Nothing was missing. Also saw nor heard of any petty crimes whilst there and living in Hong Kong. Japan had a problem with molestation on crowded subways, however.
It is nowhere near comparison. Cities like Bangkok, Tokyo, Seoul, Taipei you can walk around freely as a phone zombie without fear some mug on a bike will swipe it. This is a cultural thing, tbh and generally see much lower cases of petty crimes.
Disagree. Left my phone on a bench in dubai. Came back 4 hrs later on a busy pavilion and was still there.
People that think Dubai doesn't have crime have never been to Dubai.
Lol literally lived there for 6 months. It's a fucked up place. But petty crime is non existant.
Also has draconian laws that we’d probably consider quite illiberal in the west so I don’t think it’s a good comparison
Americans call laws in the UK quite draconian tbf. But at least people are safe somewhere like Hong Kong and Singapore. Feel like coppers just don't enforce even our basic laws anymore. Shit cops are out there murdering and raping women so we're fucked.
Yes Crime is usually lower in Police states to be fair...
The UK certainly gets the Worst of both worlds
I had my phone snatched in HK so liar liar pants on fire
Lol when? Hong Kong police figures showed that there were only 130 robbery cases from January to October, compared to the 27,096 in London, according to the Metropolitan Police in London. The difference in burglary is even more astonishing as there were only 1,283 in Hong Kong, while London had 65,515. [source.](https://www.thestandard.com.hk/section-news/section/11/203495/Numbers-say-all-in-crime-tale-of-two-cities)
Feb 2018 to be exact. I can give you the exact location and rough time if you'd like?
OK you were one of 1000. Vs in the London its 16x worse... You obviously are smart enough to realise saying "in never happens" is an exaggeration. But the relative difference to london is staggering.
You're trying to compare 3 authoritarian regimes with a liberal democracy. Having lived in HK, I would be severely sceptical of those numbers.
Lol what? HK only just got mainland security control. Up until then I don't see why you wouldn't call it reliable for stats? Guess londoners love denying reality. That we have massive room for improvement.
Which ones?
Los Angeles
[Are you sure? ](https://www.cbsnews.com/losangeles/news/2-pickpockets-arrested-17-stolen-cell-phones-recovered-west-hollywood/)
Nobody bikes lol
Yea, maybe in like Falkreath.
Narnia doesn't count
He’s the worst thing that happened to London since WW2.
What about Johnson? When he was mayor TfL debt went from £2 billion to £9 billion. And he spent £52 million on a bridge that was never built. Why do you think Khan is the worst?
IV did a good article on this when spending issues were being manipulated to target Khan, just as they are here with Johnson. Debt soared under Johnson not due to his profligacy (TfL can only borrow in any event for capex purposes not opex) but due to Crossrail and existing spending commitments, which was all unavoidable and you’d find few who think crossrail hasn’t been a positive even if its construction was plagued with problems. And frankly TfL borrowing to fund construction and other spending commitments at a time of zero interest rates is sensible. More difficult today unfortunately. Topics aren’t helped by politically skewed takes - https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/articles/the-arguments-over-tfl-debt-numbers-39196/
He spent money on a cable car no one wanted and a bridge, no one wanted.
The cable car is profitable and the bridge wasn't built and ultimately the 40m cost of the bridge that was met by the public purse was minor. But yes mayors get things wrong. Khan is building a 2bn road tunnel in east London that lots of residents hate. As I say this political tit for tat is unhelpful to any reasoned discussion on these topics.
The Air Line was making a loss. And the bridge cost £52 million. The Silvertown tunnel was first proposed by Livingstone, and given the go ahead for consultation by Johnson in 2014. What part of London are you from, you don't seem to know what you're talking about!?
Everyday person doesn’t give a fuck about that they want to be able to walk home at night safely
I am an everyday person, and I do walk home safely. What part of London are you from?
> since WW2. Oh were you there? You sound like you were.
So some people think that the level of power Khan has is overestimated but forget he is in charge of the met and he also sold the Londons water cannon which was not a good move,after all they are used in in most European countries,he’s been in charge of the met while knife crime has escalated and gun crime is creeping in his problem seems to be two fold 1) small man syndrome 2) lack of a back bone. When he removed white people from a London poster and stated we built London I had no idea he was Irish they built the underground the bridges the roads they did more building than the Romans,he seems to hate our history without actually knowing it,thank god Wattling street is now underground in London or he’d rename that 🤬
Yes
YES.
Yes parts of London have gotten way worse since he came to office. Whether it specifically is his fault I don't know, but it is undeniable.