The capital is the safest region in England in terms acts of violence against individuals according to government figures, as new Conservative Prime Minister Liz Truss continues to criticise Sadiq Khan over crime.
Home Office data reported by the BBC show that for the year ending March 2022 the rate of crimes categorised as “violence against the person” in the capital was 27 per 1,000 people, compared with 44 per 1,000 in the North West region – the highest rate in England – and between 31 and 43 per thousand in every other region except the South West with 28 per thousand.
Truss has made a series of attacks on the Labour Mayor both during her campaign to be elected her party’s new leader and since winning it to become PM. At the final campaign hustings, held in Wembley, she told LBC presenter Nick Ferrari Khan is not “prepared to be tough on crime” and yesterday told him streets in London are not “safe enough” and “I want to see the London Mayor do more to tackle crime in the capital”.
During her leadership campaign, Truss praised the right-wing television channel GB News, whose presenters have claimed that violent crime in London is “spreading like wildfire” and characterised the capital as “Khan’s lawless London”, telling one of its stars at a hustings in Manchester, “GB News is not the BBC, you know – you guys actually get your facts right”.
As On London has reported, Metropolitan Police figures for the more specific category of violent crime “with injury” in the capital have varied only fractionally for the past five years, going both slightly up and slightly down during that period. Violent offences with or without injury have risen in the year ending August 2022 compared with the previous 12 months.
Truss’s chief of staff, Mark Fullbrook, was in charge of the unsuccessful campaign by Conservative Zac Goldsmith to win the mayoralty in 2016, when Khan prevailed by a wide margin. Tactics included suggesting to Hindu and Sikh Londoners that Khan, a Muslim, had secret plans to tax their jewellery, and were strongly criticised by some London Tories.
On London strives to provide more of the kind of journalism the capital city needs. Become a supporter for just £5 a month. You will even get things for your money. Details here.