Luxury property developer Nick Candy, a born and bred Londoner, says the UK capital is missing out on opportunities because crime has sent its reputation tumbling.
Safe locations such as the UAE are able to take advantage of a new "portable" business world generating wealth, while London has been hamstrung by its failure to get to grips with issues such as knife crime, he told The National.
The billionaire developer, who as a frequent visitor has been exploring potential projects in the UAE, believes there are straightforward solutions that involve tougher policing.
He is in favour of increased stop-and-search powers, a tactic that has proved controversial due to accusations that ethnic minorities are disproportionately targeted by police.
And he ultimately wants to see the back of the current mayor of London, Sadiq Khan. The Labour mayor, who is responsible for the strategic direction of policing in London, was recently widely criticised for "victim blaming" by suggesting the temptation to steal a mobile phone is partly fuelling knife crime.
Mr Candy – a former Conservative Party donor – believes the mayor has failed to get to grips with increasing violence on the streets and has called for his replacement.
Knife crime since the pandemic has risen fast in the capital, with a 21 per cent increase in the 12 months between July 2022 and June 2023 alone, with a total of 13,503 incidents recorded during the period. Incidents are, however, still 8 per cent lower than before Covid, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said.
Incidents of luxury watch thefts are also rising in London. According to the most recent available statistics, there were almost 2,000 watch robberies in Westminster, Kensington and Chelsea, and Hammersmith and Fulham, between April and September 2022, representing a 4 per cent increase on the previous six months.
Quick fix needed
Mr Candy was speaking in an interview days after an Indian businessman warned shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who this week has been on a trip to India, that business executives did not feel safe visiting high-end parts of London for fear of having their expensive watches and bags stolen.
Devin Narang, the founder and partner at Sundev Renewables and an executive member of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, told The National senior executives had been "mugged right in the heart of [London's upmarket district of] Mayfair", creating a fear of the so-called Rolex Ripper crime wave.
Mr Candy believes London “is still the greatest city on Earth”, but needs to greatly improve its image abroad.
He has previously warned that "international money" was being put off from coming to London because people don't want their children to live in a dangerous place, and was admonished for describing it as the "wild west".
“I got told off because I said that London’s crime was out of control,” he said in the interview, as he insisted the situation had not improved.
“Places like Dubai and Abu Dhabi, where there is zero crime, are going to benefit in the short and long term. They already have.
“We have knife crime where America has gun crime. I think you could sort out the knife crime very quickly in London by doing … stop and search and changing the mayor.”
Support for PopCon
With his brother Christian, Mr Candy runs a property company that developed One Hyde Park, a luxury apartment block on the next street to Harrods, which brought in more than £2 billion ($2.52 billion) in sales from 86 apartments.
He put his own two-storey, five-bedroom home at the top of the ultra-lavish Knightsbridge block on the market for £175 million in late 2022.
Mr Candy arrived in the UAE on Thursday, having attended the launch of a new political movement led by former prime minister Liz Truss called Popular Conservatism, or PopCon, which aims to lobby the Conservative government for more hardline policies.
He last gave money to the Tories under Boris Johnson, donating more than £270,000 between 2020 and 2022. He made no donations during Ms Truss's brief tenure in Downing Street, but was full of praise for her. She told the event that the government had appeased left-wing extremists.
One Hyde Park – in pictures
Referring to the case of Afghanistan-born Abdul Ezedi, an asylum seeker currently on the run in the UK after a woman and her two children were attacked with a corrosive substance, Mr Candy told The National that crime is not necessarily getting worse, but some policies are failing the population.
Mr Ezedi was granted asylum after converting to Christianity despite two previous failed applications and a conviction for a sexual offence two years previously.
“How can we have people that come to our country that are illegal immigrants, that they get asylum ... they have committed sexual offences. They should have been deported at that stage.
“It's disgraceful in London. It's disgraceful in any part of the world. Every single person that sits in the house of parliament that represents their various constituents needs to get this under control.”
Upstaged by pop-star wife
It was issues like this that inspired the former Conservative donor to attend PopCon, where he found his appearance overshadowed by that of his wife, the Australian former model, actress and singer, Holly Valance.
Asked about her politics, she used some colourful language to describe her belief that everyone starts off as a leftie and then shifts to the right "after you start either making money, working, trying to run a business, trying to buy a home".
Mr Candy said his wife was taken aback by the interest in what she said.
“As far as she was concerned, it was a few comments at the end of PopCon,” he said.
“The amount of inbound calls from TV stations, newspapers, politicians, people ask you to become an MP, people asking her to run for mayor of London against Sadiq Khan. It's been phenomenal. And a lot of people just said, at least someone's talking common sense for once.”
Whether she ultimately enters politics, however, remains to be seen. Her first priority is, and will always be, the couple’s two children, he said.
“So will she do something? I don't know. The jury's out.”
Dubai investment on the horizon
The rest of the family are due to join Mr Candy in Dubai this weekend for half-term, giving him the insight into what London is missing out on.
The family still live in the capital, but visit Dubai regularly for holidays.
“We absolutely love it here,” he said.
Mr Candy said the UAE will profit from the work-from-home trend in the West – something he does not support because he feels it can be taken advantage of by employees.
But it means wealth is now portable, he said.
"Work is portable, and you're seeing that wealth and that wealth is coming into the UAE like nowhere else in the world.”
The billionaire has spent the past two and a half years exploring deals in the UAE and has been working on “lots of very interesting projects”.
He has not bought property there yet, but plans to.
“I absolutely love Dubai and if I had to choose a first equal home to London, it would be Dubai,” he said.
Property in Dubai has reached up to £5,000 per square foot in some places, something he said could become the norm.
“If you look at the reports coming from UBS, Savills and a whole range of other people, they will tell you that the largest growth point for real estate and high-end real estate in the world will be Dubai.
“The reason why is quite simply, you've got all the ingredients you need to make the perfect cake.
“You've got low crime, low taxation, great quality of life, incredible infrastructure for families, so if you want to travel somewhere you don't need private jets.
“You've got the greatest airline in the world.”
