I didn’t know I had it so bad. For all of my 30 years living in London, I have thought my home city to be, while flawed and having been to some extent misgoverned over the years, a pretty good one. Yet listening to some recent the commentary about the city from the right-of-centre you would think I am practically living in Third World conditions.
There has been an increasingly relentless campaign waged from the British political Right against London. The pundits and politicians enlisted on this project, who often moan about political opponents “talking the country down”, appear determined to portray the nation’s capital as some kind of crime-ridden modern Gotham City. Which, as I say, is news to those of us who have lived here for all or most of our lives.
In a press conference the other week to launch his Britain is Lawless campaign, Nigel Farage was asked by a Sky News journalist whether, in doing this he was, in fact, stoking fear to gain political traction. Farage responded that people were already afraid, because of the issues of crime he is raising. “I dare you to walk through the West End of London after nine o-clock of an evening wearing jewellery,” he replied old. “You wouldn’t do it. You know I’m right, you wouldn’t do it”.
The interaction was appropriately ridiculed. If Farage wanted to choose an example of an area of London to portray as a lawless, gang-controlled no-go zone, he could have done better than the West End, which is literally bustling with people – many daring to don their jewellery and even openly use their smartphones – until the early hours of the morning on most nights. Perhaps Farage wouldn’t dare venture into this supposed warzone, but thousands of ostensibly reckless hotheads do.
Another prominent voice in this anti-London campaign is the heterodox professor-come-GB News pundit Matt Goodwin. In June, Goodwin posted on X/Twitter a long list of grievances he apparently experienced on a visit to London, which included paying “nearly £8 for a pint”, buying a tin of instant coffee with a security tag on it, and being asked three times for money by homeless people. Some of which I can sympathise with. But if the professor happened to notice anything remotely nice about the capital on his day trip, he didn’t mention it.
In an essay posted on his Substack shortly after this X post, entitled “London is so over”, Goodwin expanded on his grievances about the capital. In it, he complains of “mass, uncontrolled migration”, high rents and house prices, endemic crime and demographic change, concluding that “a toxic cocktail of demographic change, mass migration and economic stagnation push our once-great city into managed decline and make it completely unrecognizable”. What I find unrecognisable is his portrayal of London.
Then there is the failed Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick, whose quest to stay relevant has included releasing footage of himself accosting fare-dodgers on the Tube. During his vigilante video, Jenrick similarly bemoaned the “bike theft, shoplifting, drugs in town centres, weird Turkish barbershops”.
As with much punditry and hyperbole, there are some grains of truth in this highly partial characterisation of London as an ungovernable hot-bed of crime. So, leaving aside the Turkish barbers – what exactly these poor guys are being charged with other than generic “weirdness”? I can’t quiet tell – did Jenrick have a point?
Some categories of crime, covering things such as phone-snatching and shoplifting have indeed risen for a period, and figures for knife crime and violent crime have gone up since dipping during the pandemic. However, the most recent Met figures have shown month-on-month reductions in theft from the person, robbery and knife crime compared with 2024. The murder rate is slightly down since the pandemic to approximately the same level as ten years ago. Admittedly, it is too high. Yet it is half what it was in 2003.
Other stats show that increases in certain crimes over the past decade have not been unique to London, where trends have been roughly in line with an overall increases in crime in England and Wales as a whole, while the Metropolitan Police area has a lower crime rate per 1,000 population than other forces in the country, like Merseyside, West Yorkshire, or Greater Manchester.
The narrative of London’s decline and ghettoisation also ignores how much of the city has been lifted up by gentrification. A host of formerly downtrodden areas, like King’s Cross, Spitalfields, Elephant and Castle, Stoke Newington and Peckham, have been transformed into flourishing visitor destinations over the last 20 years, replete with food markets, hipster coffee shops and pubs serving craft beer. It is partly why rents have shot up in such areas, and why the angry Goodwin had to pay £8 for a pint. Some of the economics that come with gentrification are of course not ideal. But there are trade-offs with such things, and on balance, I can’t say I regret them.
The proof is also there in the tourists, who, not getting the memo about London’s “managed decline”, continue to create footfall here. London was named the best destination in the world in the 2025 Tripadvisor Travellers’ Choice Awards. A friend of mine from Brazil utterly adores the city – so much so that she comes back every few years to spend time here. When I’m abroad, I often hear similarly positive impressions of London made on non-Brits, who have been charmed by some specific part of the city. I have yet to meet a tourist who has visited London and said they hated it.
Nor, frankly, have I met many Londoners who believe this. The distortion of London as a degenerating hellscape seems to be a peculiarly British one, pushed by those living in the UK, but outside London itself. Of course, like any city-dweller, we Londoners moan about our city plenty – it would be un-British not to.
We moan about the gridlock, the crammed Central line, the £5 croissants and £1,500-a-month rooms in shared flats. But most of us are careful not to misrepresent the broader picture. London is flawed and has serious issues that need serious attention. But, on balance, it’s a great city and far nicer than it used to be. London-haters can avoid it if they want – it’s their loss.
Patrick Hess is a London-based writer who covers politics, culture and international relations.
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Above all London is the cultural capital of this planet. Then hate-sowers are just that hate-sowers. The country has gone to the dogs, but London is about fine. And no source seems keen on linking crime to growing poverty resulting from growing socio-economic injustices here (Notting Hill resident since 1981).