{"id":691569,"date":"2026-01-12T18:04:21","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:04:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/691569\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T18:04:21","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T18:04:21","slug":"londons-homicide-rate-is-at-a-record-low-as-mayor-says-it-disproves-trumps-dystopian-claims-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/691569\/","title":{"rendered":"London\u2019s homicide rate is at a record low as mayor says it disproves Trump&#8217;s &#8216;dystopian&#8217; claims"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\"><strong>LONDON<\/strong> \u2013 London\u2019s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/mamdani-new-york-london-mayor-sadiq-khan-918667094240586ee121bff306c8d111\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mayor Sadiq Khan<\/a> said the figures disprove claims spread by U.S. President Donald Trump and others on the political right that crime is out of control in Britain\u2019s capital.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Police recorded 97 homicides in London in 2025, down from 109 in 2024 and the fewest since 2014. The Metropolitan Police force says the rate by population is the lowest since comparable records began in 1997, at 1.1 homicides for every 100,000 people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">That compares to 1.6 per 100,000 in Paris, 2.8 in New York and 3.2 in Berlin, the force said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThere are some politicians and commentators who\u2019ve been spamming social media with an endless stream of distortions and untruths, painting an image of a dystopian London,\u201d Khan told The Associated Press. \u201cAnd nothing could be further from the truth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Trump, who has been directing insults at Khan for a decade, said in September that crime in the city is \u201cthrough the roof.\u201d He has called Khan a \u201cstone-cold loser,\u201d a \u201cnasty person\u201d and \u2013 in front of the U.N. General Assembly in September \u2013 a \u201cterrible, terrible mayor.\u201d Trump has also claimed without foundation that Khan wants <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-migration-europe-prisons-a33c2622248d7314d2172078ec392356\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">to bring Sharia, or Islamic law, to London<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">City officials say a combination of targeted policing aimed at organized crime and a violence reduction unit that aims to stop young people getting involved with gangs have helped reduce violent crime.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">A falling murder rate is only part of the story. Many Londoners have firsthand experience of phone-snatching, and shoplifting has surged, according to the Office for National Statistics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">The Crime Survey for England and Wales, which asks people about their experience of crime rather than relying on police figures, found overall crime rose by 7% in the year to March 2025 from the previous 12 months, though it remains significantly lower than in 2017.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Arguments that London is a crime-plagued dystopia under Labour Party mayor Khan have mushroomed on social media sites including the Elon Musk-owned X, formerly Twitter, and are echoed by opposition politicians, often tied to anti-immigrant views.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cThere are certain politicians, certain commentators who have been using London as a punchbag\u201d to fit their own political agenda, Khan said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">\u201cLondon is, in my view, the best city in the world. We are liberal, we are progressive, we are diverse. And we are incredibly successful,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dist__Box-sc-1fnzlkn-0 dist__TextBase-sc-1fnzlkn-3 bYFsJw cuqaEv article-text\">Khan said London is the \u201cnumber one city in the world for tourism, the sporting capital of the world, the cultural capital of the world, more international students than in any city in the world, a record amount of foreign direct investment. Last year, more Americans came to London to study or to work or to invest since records began. So we\u2019re the antithesis to everything these nativists believe in. And if you\u2019re President Trump, Vice President JD Vance, or if you\u2019re an imitator in Europe or indeed in the UK, I can see why this is a problem to you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONDON \u2013 London\u2019s murder rate fell in 2025 to its lowest level in decades, officials said Monday. Mayor&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":691570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,32,295,393,4884,601,257,14252,16,15,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-691569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-donald-trump","10":"tag-elon-musk","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-great-britain","13":"tag-jd-vance","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-sadiq-khan","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115883453073358247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=691569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/691569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/691570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=691569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=691569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=691569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}