The war of words between POTUS Donald Trump and MoL Sir Sadiq Khan continues
There was no love lost between Donald Trump and Sir Sadiq Khan this week, as the US President claimed crime in London is ‘through the roof’. Escalating a long-running feud between the two firebrands, Trump said: “I think he’s done a terrible job. Crime in London is through the roof… And when I see Mayor Khan do a bad job, the stabbings and the dirt and the filth, it’s not the same.”
The Mayor has not responded directly, but a source close to him told the Press Association: “Trump’s politics is one of fear and division. This includes talking down our great capital city. London is a global success story – it’s open, dynamic and safer than major US cities. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons record numbers of Americans are choosing to make London their home.”
While some Londoners will be behind Khan in denouncing Trump’s ‘politics of fear and division’, official Home Office data on crime tells a story the Mayor would rather avoid.
Is Trump right?
It is important to say off the bat: comparing crime data is fraught with difficulty. There have been numerous changes in recording methods, even under Khan’s mayorship, making it hard to put statistics side by side.
In 2014, a report from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary, Fire, and Rescue Services (HMICFRS) found significant under-recording of crimes in England and Wales. Since that inspection, the national accuracy rate has risen by 12 points to 92 per cent.
Burglary offences were also re-categorised in 2017 and 2023, affecting how some data is recorded. And following the launch of the Met’s new CONNECT computer system, the force has reviewed knife or sharp instrument offences from April 2024, having found over counting for some crime types and under counting for others.
It also depends which data set is being used. To assess whether the Mayor really has overseen a crime surge in London, we focussed on headline offences in data stored by the Office of National Statistics, looking at the number of offences per population when Khan came into office in May 2016 (using data for the year to June 2016), and how things stand now (the latest data available is the year to March 2025).
This is what we found:
- Crime (excluding fraud): Up 23 points from 84.6 to 106.4 offences per 1,000 population
- Violence against the person: Up 7 points from 19.8 to 26.5
- Sexual offences: Up 1 point from 1.8 to 3.0
- Theft: Up 11 points from 42.3 to 53.5
- Robbery: Up 1 point from 2.6 to 3.8
Here’s some more data to show how things have actually changed:
- Shoplifting: Up 6 points from 5.0 to 10.6 offences per 1,000 population
- Bike Theft: Down less than 1 point from 2.1 to 1.8
- Theft from a person: Up 6 points from 4.0 to 11.6
- Other thefts: Down less than 1 point from 13.1 to 12.5
What about murders, knives, and guns?
So far we have focussed on the sort of crimes that are more likely to affect Londoners directly. But crimes like shootings, stabbings, and murders are always going to be the ones that grab headlines and draw attention from critics. The data here is a mixed bag, with knife crime up, murders around the same, and gun crime down.
This is the data from 2016 to 2024 by population:
- Knife and sharp instrument: Up 64 points from 105 to 169 offences per 1,000 population
- Homicide: Level at around 100 murders a year
- Firearms: Down 4 points from 18 to 14
The Mayor has admitted there is a ‘long way to go’ when it comes to fighting crime in London, but the latest City Hall data (as opposed to ONS data) shows knife crime actually dropped by 19 per cent between April and June this year compared with the same period last year, while the number of residential burglaries, personal thefts and personal robberies also fell.
Overall recorded crime has increased by 32pc in the Metropolitan Police area of London in the last 10 years, with violent crime increasing by 40pc, according to ONS official crime data.
The data from the Mayor’s Office for Policing and Crime – which is not yet publicly available – appears to show annual falls in:
- Theft from a person from 25,272 to 21,937 (13pc)
- Robbery of personal property from 7,106 to 6,209 (13pc)
- Residential burglary from 7,974 to 7,144 (10pc)
Commenting on these figures in August, the Mayor said: “The latest figures show robbery, theft, residential burglary and knife crime are down in London, but there’s still a long way to go before I’m satisfied.”
Reform UK Assembly Member Alex Wilson told the Local Democracy Reporting Service : “If Sadiq Khan thinks London is getting more safe, he needs to get out more. The idea he points to incremental changes in just a few categories is ridiculous.”
“The long-term trends under Sadiq Khan are clear: knife crime is up, theft is up, shoplifting is up, fare evasion is up, phone thefts at the highest ever seen, and just two per cent of burglaries in outer London result in a charge or summons.
With London’s known population put at around 8.95million in 2023 (the last entry on the London Datastore), that puts the murder rate at around 11 for every one million people. That is low compared to major cities in the United States. New York recorded more than 46 murders for every one million people in the same year, while Chicago had more than 220, and Philadelphia more than 250.
While there might be some truth in Trump’s analysis of ‘the stabbings and the dirt and the filth’, it appears Khan is right to hit back by highlighting the relative safety of Londoners compared to our US counterparts.
Perceptions of crime
According to the Crime Survey of England and Wales, concern about crime on a national and local level remains close to what it was in the mid-1990s, when it first asked whether there is ‘a little more’ or ‘a lot more’ crime than two years ago.
In 1996, 75 per cent of respondents said ‘Yes’ to nationally, while 55pc said yes to locally. In 2016, when Khan entered office, the concern had dropped to 60pc and 31pc, but last year this had risen to 82pc and 53pc.
As the respondents to this question are drawn from a national pool, we do not have data on crime perception in London. But it is useful for knowing how people across the country think, many of whom will be influenced by media and social media coverage from London.
Perceptions are important though. Everyone has seen videos of people shoplifting meat and wine, thieves brazenly cutting bicycle locks, phones grabbed from hands, and parcels swiped from doorsteps. But are these videos – so common now on social media thanks to the introduction of Ring doorbells and 10x zoom HD cameras – a reflection of the data, or just tainting the public’s feelings?
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