‘People don’t expect that the police will turn up’: Is London really an unsafe city?

Statistics from the Met suggest fewer homicides were recorded last year compared to any other year since 2014 (Picture: EPA)

If you don’t live in London or visit regularly, you may have found a couple of news stories in the last week confusing.

On the one hand, there was Mayor Sadiq Khan announcing that the city’s homicide rate last year was the lowest since records began – and the number of murders in 2025 was lower than any year since 2014.

But on the other, Reform’s candidate...