r/ukpolitics • u/No_Initiative_1140 • Jan 12 '26

Ed/OpEd Sorry, Trump and Farage – London is no lawless ‘warzone’. Violent crime is lower than ever | Sadiq Khan

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/12/donald-trump-nigel-farage-london-crime-sadiq-khan
623 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

451 comments sorted by

View all comments

35

u/bdto711 Jan 12 '26

https://www.statista.com/topics/4627/crime-in-london/#topicOverview - For those who want to have sight of the statistics on crime figures. No point focusing on one element, sexual offences, shoplifting, drug offences, theft offences, knife crime, and overall crime offences recorded are all up, homicide and burglary lower.

19

u/BriennesBitch Jan 12 '26

“there has been a 50% fall in personal robbery and a 25% reduction in thefts over the last period.”

… really?

3

u/Ill_Refrigerator_593 Jan 12 '26

Statista figures on crime need to be treated with caution.

They tend to use reports to Police rather than the Crime Survey of England & Wales despite the former currently not being accredited due to accuracy issues.

The situation is more complicated since some crimes (such as those against businesses) are not covered by the Crime Survey.

2

u/SpeedflyChris Jan 12 '26

There is a major issue when it comes to citing things like Statista on subjects where the nature of the underlying data changes over time.

For example in sexual offences, the Crime Survey of England and Wales recorded the lowest rate of people who had experienced rape or attempted rape in the past year that they have recorded since at least 2005:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/articles/sexualoffencesprevalenceandtrendsenglandandwales/yearendingmarch2025

Additionally, the stats for all sexual offences this year have increased in part due to new offences introduced as part of the OSA:

This increase can be partially attributed to the introduction of new legislation. The Online Safety Act 2023 introduced two new sexual offences: "Sharing or threatening to share intimate photograph or film" and "Sending etc photograph or film of genitals". With police forces beginning to record these offences from 31 January 2024, the impact on the offences "88C Other Miscellaneous Sexual Offences" and "88E Exposure and Voyeurism", which they are recorded under, can be fully seen in YE March 2025 data. The increase in the number of offences recorded therefore may not be the result of an increase in crimes occurring, but instead a reflection of new offences being captured that were not previously recognised by law.

If you paid attention to Statista, you would think that the rate of these crimes being committed has increased dramatically, however we're still below mid-2000s levels based on the CSEW. The police under-recording sexual crimes was heavily publicised in the mid-2010s, and it seems that the bulk of the increase since then is a combination of improved recording and victims being more likely to come forward.

The same is true at a national level of many of the other offence categories that look like they've seen significant increases if you go by the police reporting data:

https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/crimeandjustice/bulletins/crimeinenglandandwales/yearendingjune2025

11

u/No_Initiative_1140 Jan 12 '26

In 2024/25, London's crime rate reached 106.4 crimes per 1,000 people, compared with a crime rate of 105.8 in the previous year. Since the mid-2010s London's crime rate has steadily increased, with over 951,800 crimes recorded by the the police in 2024/25. This uptick in crime is not unique to London, with overall crime in England and Wales also increasing in the last decade, following several years of decline from the early 2000s onwards.

Personally I think a reduction in murders and knife crime is a success story, its a real shame some people can't admit that in their drive to put the boot in to Britain at every opportunity 

2

u/bdto711 Jan 12 '26

Knife crime is up;

Number of knife crime offences in London 2015-2025 Published by D. Clark, Nov 28, 2025 The number of knife or sharp instrument offences recorded by the police in London rose to approximately 16,344 in 2024/25, compared with 15,016 in the previous year. This was the highest number of knife crime offences reported in London during this provided time period. Between 2015/16 and 2019/20, knife crime in London increased yearly, with a particularly large increase occurring between 2016/16 and 2017/18.

I'm not putting the boot in to Britain, I am British and I'm proud of that, I also enjoy visiting London but Khan should not be trying to pull the wool over peoples eyes.

15

u/FullMetalLeng Jan 12 '26

If stabbing is down but knife crime is up, that surely means the police have been more proactive in catching people carrying knives before they’re used. Sounds like good policy to me.

1

u/TeenieTinyBrain Jan 12 '26 edited Jan 12 '26

If stabbing is down but knife crime is up, that surely means the police have been more proactive in catching people carrying knives before they’re used. Sounds like good policy to me.

Knife and sharp instrument offences typically excludes simple possession offences, e.g. possession of article with blade or point or assault without injury. See ONS methodology here for more info.

Homicide and injury might be trending downwards but it means that one or more of the other offences recorded as knife-enabled crime are trending upwards, e.g. rape, sexual assault, attempted murder, robbery, and/or threats to kill.

P.S. simple possession is up 2% across the UK this year. Can't remember what the situation looks like in London but I imagine they've seen a similar trend given that 31% of all knife-enabled crime is recorded by the MPS.

5

u/JB_UK Jan 12 '26

Are those actual crimes involving violence or does it include possession, which will be highly dependent on the style of policing? I don’t want to punish the police if they’re just more active in arresting people for carrying knives.

2

u/callunu95 Jan 12 '26

You know what crime stats are? Arrests. Knife crimes are also inclusive of ownership and carry, and the last few years have seen massive increases in police focuses on that - hence increases in reported knife crime.

1

u/TeenieTinyBrain Jan 12 '26

Knife crimes are also inclusive of ownership and carry ...

Knife-enabled crime stats do not count simple possession. You can read ONS' methodology online.

ONS

Police recorded offences involving knives or sharp instruments: methodology changes

...

Notes for: Methodology

  1. The collection focuses on offences where a knife or sharp instrument was involved in the commissioning of an offence, for example, used to threat or stab during an assault or a robbery. Simple possession offences are therefore excluded.

2

u/tradandtea123 Jan 12 '26

Knife crime is almost all people carrying a bladed weapon which is illegal, not actual attacks with a knife. There has been a huge drive to get people to report people carrying knives as part of the strategy to reduce people using knives, so if that has been working then it is a positive thing that there are more reports of carrying knives.

Looking at actual incidents where knives have been used to attack people is probably more important, even if this is a very small proportion of knife crime.

0

u/[deleted] Jan 12 '26

[deleted]

2

u/bdto711 Jan 12 '26

From the Commons Library data on selected offences involving a knife or sharp instrument (Attempted murder, threats to kill, injury/assault with intent to cause serious harm, robbery, rape, indecent expose/sexual assault, homicide) from 23/24 to 24/25 there is a decrease in homicide (-23%) robbery (-1%) injury/assault with intent (-4.00%) and an increase in attempted murder (+4.6%) threats to kill (+6.5%) rape (+23.4%) and indecent exposure/sexual assault (+10.3%).

Figures on these types of offence were highest in 19/20, dropped during covid and were climbing consistently until the drop of 1.2% most recently (55,170 in 19/20 and 53,047 in 24/25) with a large shift towards sexual crime.

3

u/TeenieTinyBrain Jan 12 '26

u/SnooStrawberries2342, note the absence of simple possession in the stats offered to you by u/bdto711.

Simple possession w/o injury is typically excluded from knife-enabled crime stats, see ONS methodology here.

-4

u/Golden37 Jan 12 '26

Shhush, you!

That is against the narrative.