Don’t believe what Sadiq Khan is telling you about crime in London
Sadiq Khan has said that London is safe but he is wrong. Crimes are going unreported and Londoners have lost all faith in the Met Police, says Dr Lawrence Newport
Yesterday, Sadiq Khan and Sir Mark Rowley argued that the facts show London is safe.
Unfortunately, they are wrong. In fact, large swathes of crime have become effectively legal in London thanks to Sadiq Khan and the Metropolitan Police’s inaction and refusal to take the concerns of ordinary Londoners seriously.
In 2024, there were over 90,000 reports of shoplifting and 117,211 recorded cases of phone theft. That means a phone is stolen every five minutes somewhere in our capital city. It is clear: London is in the midst of its worst theft epidemic since records began.
What is more, most cases are not solved. Exclusive data obtained by Looking For Growth shows that more than nine in 10 reported shoplifting cases did not result in a charge and, if you were the victim of a “theft from the person” crime, there was only a 0.6 per cent chance that the perpetrator would face justice. Contrary to Khan and Rowley’s claim yesterday, these figures represent a failure to make our streets safe.
Theft epidemic
The result is higher crime and a justified crisis of confidence in our police. Now, crimes go underreported – the Metropolitan Police are the least trusted force in the country, with two in three Londoners saying they don’t have trust in them.
It didn’t have to be this way. Our institutions chose to enable this theft epidemic by failing to arrest criminals, and not punishing those who are arrested. There is no justification for under two per cent of bike thefts ending in only a suspect being identified.
But we can choose differently. We can decide to keep our streets safe. We can decide to arrest and imprison career criminals for longer. We can act to rebuild the credibility of the force, and restore society’s confidence in our police. We can see this in police forces that are functioning across the
country – Sir Stephen Watson’s insistence that all crime, including shoplifting and phone snatching, actually be investigated has transformed Greater Manchester Police, taking it out of special measures after response times and case solve rate rapidly improved.
The route back to safe streets and a high trust society is to pursue career criminals. We know that the majority of crime is committed by under 10 per cent of offenders. These offenders have at least 15 offences to their name – they are career criminals, often in highly resourced, co-ordinated gangs, that are terrorising the streets of our capital city. It is these gangs and career criminals who are making London’s streets dangerous and unsafe for ordinary people. These offenders are driving up the cost of living, terrorising our streets and operating organised networks that make crime pay.
When these gangs and full–time criminals are arrested, crime rapidly declines. For example, when seven members of a bike theft gang were arrested and imprisoned in 2020, the number of bike thefts in Canada fell by 90 per cent. Similarly, when Barnsley police arrested seven prolific burglars in 2023, there was a 64 per cent reduction in the number of homes broken into in Goldthorpe over a six-month period.
The safety of ordinary people in London can and must improve. But our leaders and our institutions – our Mayor and our police – must choose to prioritise public safety first. They must make safe streets their number one priority: only then will it be possible to reduce crime and rebuild trust.
Dr Lawrence Newport is the co-founder and Director of Looking for Growth (LFG), a political movement to end decline and save Britain.