Sadiq Khan has found £7million of taxpayers’ money for an international campaign to counter what he calls “false narratives” about London.
If only he had shown the same determination in tackling the phone-snatching epidemic, knife crime, shoplifting, rape, sexual violence and the lawlessness that Londoners deal with every day.
Instead, City Hall is spending public money pushing back against what it calls “false narratives” about crime. In other words, telling victims that what they have experienced is not really happening and telling Londoners not to believe what they see on their own streets.
No. The problem, apparently, is not the lawlessness. It is that people are talking about it.
This is the instinct of every failing administration. When reality becomes inconvenient, attack the people describing it. Call the victims liars for daring to speak out.
For years Londoners have been told not to believe their own eyes. If you pointed out rising crime, you were accused of exaggerating, fear-mongering or worse. If women said they felt unsafe, they were told the statistics did not support their concerns. If Londoners complained about lawlessness, they were dismissed as spreading negativity about the capital.
Now even the polling tells the same story.
A recent survey found that six in ten women believe London is becoming less safe. Suddenly it is headline news.
Perhaps the political class will finally listen. Not because thousands of women have been telling them for years, but because a poll has. In Westminster, a survey carries more weight than what people see on their own streets every day.
The truth is that women never needed a survey to tell them what they already knew every time they walked home alone.
And while City Hall spends millions trying to persuade people that London is safer than they think, the facts remain stubbornly unchanged.
A rape is reported in London roughly every hour. Yet only around 6 per cent result in a charge. Worse still, rape is not included in the violent crime figures politicians often use when boasting about crime statistics.
You cannot solve a problem you refuse to measure properly.
Nor can you restore public confidence by spending public money on advertising campaigns that misrepresent reality. Gaslighting Londoners will not make London safer.
Sadiq Khan’s answer to rising crime and shrinking police resources is not London safer. It is making London look safer.
A Mayor’s job is not to change perceptions. It is to change reality.
If hundreds of thousands of phones have been stolen, the answer is not a PR campaign. If women feel unsafe, the answer is not another slogan. If lawlessness is becoming normalised, the answer is not telling people they are wrong to notice.
The first duty of government is safety.
There is another problem with the way this debate is conducted. Whenever criticism of Sadiq Khan’s record becomes unavoidable, the discussion is too often redirected towards identity. We are told critics cannot accept a Muslim Mayor, or that opposition must somehow be rooted in prejudice.
No. Londoners are not judging Sadiq Khan because he is Muslim. They are judging him because he has been Mayor for nearly a decade.
I am Muslim too. If I become Mayor, I would expect to be judged on exactly the same basis: crime, housing, transport, policing and results. An attack on my record would be an attack on my record, not my religion.
Identity politics has become a shield for political failure. The question is not who the Mayor is. The question is whether London is safer, more prosperous and better run than it was before.
As Mayor, I’d launch an all-out war on crime, not on free speech. Sadiq Khan wants a unit to tackle “disinformation”. I want a City Hall that tackles criminals.
I would focus relentlessly on rapists, robbers, knife criminals, phone thieves and those who covered up the grooming gangs scandal. I would count rape honestly, confront it honestly, and create a specialist unit dedicated to tackling rape and sexual violence.
London does not have a perception problem. It has a crime problem. And until City Hall accepts that reality, no amount of taxpayer-funded propaganda will make Londoners feel safer.
