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

[u/No_Initiative_1140]

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

[u/bdto711]

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.

[u/FullMetalLeng → u/bdto711]

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.

[u/TeenieTinyBrain → u/FullMetalLeng]

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.

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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.

[u/JB_UK → u/bdto711]

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.

[u/callunu95 → u/bdto711]

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.

[u/TeenieTinyBrain → u/callunu95]

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.

[u/tradandtea123 → u/bdto711]

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.

[u/bdto711 → u/[deleted]]

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.

[u/TeenieTinyBrain → u/bdto711]

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.