I disagree with Sam Leith’s recent piece entitled ‘London hasn’t fallen’. He took at face value Sadiq Khan’s claim in a recent speech at a ‘disinformation summit’ that social media posts drawing attention to London’s rising crime rate – particularly knife crime, shoplifting, mobile phone theft and violence against women and girls – were either mis- or disinformation and were probably posted by bots, presumably based abroad. But is that true?

What the mayor and his researchers fail to acknowledge is that some of the anxiety about crime in London reflects things that are actually happening

What the mayor and his researchers fail to acknowledge is that some of the anxiety about crime in London reflects things that are actually happening

Khan himself is guilty of spreading misinformation about knife crime. In 2024, his claim that ‘knife and gun crime, homicides and burglary have all fallen since 2016’ was challenged by the ONS, which pointed out that while knife crime with injury involving victims under 25 had fallen, total knife crime had increased significantly since 2016.

Khan’s most recent speech relied on data supplied by research he’d commissioned himself and which was carried out by a research unit in City Hall. This purported to show that ‘London in decline’ narratives on X have grown by 150 to 200 per cent in the past two years, while migration-related narratives are up by over 350 per cent. The........

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