At last, there is some good news from London as The National reported on Monday that the UK capital’s murder rate is the lowest per head since figures were first published in 1997.
The figure has dropped to below 100 victims – the lowest for more than a decade. With the growth in the city’s population, this puts London on a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 people – a rate lower than any other British city and below many comparable global metros.
City officials have used this to push back against the narrative that London is crime-tolerant and, thus, unsafe not only for its own population but for visitors who want to enjoy what it has to offer. Yet, their campaign has all the hallmarks of the classic “look over there” displacement tactic.
Surveys show that what people are most concerned about in London is personal crime, such as mobile phone thefts, luxury watch-snatching and shoplifting. In fact, the figures on these counts have soared in recent years. One telling statistic is that the police did not visit the scene of more than half of serious thefts.
Just over 18 months ago, the current Labour government was elected with a landslide on a slogan of change. But it has done poorly so far, failing to raise the performance of the administrative state.
Justice has been a particularly black spot. A year ago, the UK’s Home Office opened a “competition” to fill the role of Commissioner for Countering Extremism. It got rid of the extremely active and impressive incumbent Robin Simcox to prepare for some amalgamation of the role on conclusion of the competition.
The idea, promoted by Minister of State for Security Dan Jarvis, was to wrap in duties around tackling political violence and disruption to the remit of counter-extremism. In theory, the government was creating a more powerful figure who would occupy an expanded space in a sensitive and high-profile area of the political and security landscape.
But we remain at the “in-theory” stage.
There has been no conclusion to the selection process. No new commissioner has been appointed. There has also not been a parallel appointment of the Independent Prevent Commissioner, who oversees the government programme to tackle extremist threats. That second appointment was promised in the same press release under Mr Jarvis’s name.
This lack of attention to the fundamental challenges that British society faces is noticed by some of the country’s closest friends. Governments signal publicly and privately that it is difficult, if not impossible, to work with the UK on the basis that it is unserious on these matters. One of those calling out the UK regularly is US Vice President JD Vance. Another is US Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers.
Last week, Ms Rogers posted on X after it emerged that London Mayor Sadiq Khan was defending the apparently indefensible from the city’s Metropolitan Police. It had overridden vetting requirements for police recruits in an effort to meet additional government funding to boost the diversity of the force. It turned out that two people were raped by a serving officer who had previously been rejected following an allegation of rape.
This sort of administrative failure is not routine, nor is it the outcome of a long-standing system having gone wrong. It is the result of goal-setting overriding the administrative machine. And if instances such as these cannot be acknowledged as failures that must be redressed, then the system is broken.
Instead, Mr Khan’s response to the revelations was to blame the national government – which at the time of the recruitment process was under the Conservative party’s control – for creating an incentive scheme to provide extra funding for the diversity programme.
The Conservatives are as culpable as Labour for the outcomes that the British state currently produces and regards as “normal government”.
Mr Jarvis’s predecessor, Tom Tugendhat, has been trying to explain away his failure to proscribe Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under terrorism legislation. Proscription is meant to prevent the IRGC from interfering and threatening Iranian dissidents within the UK.
While a great champion of the Iranian people, currently on the streets protesting against their government, Mr Tugendhat has had to explain his record. His point is that he has produced legislation against foreign interference that allows prosecution of the people working for the IRGC in the UK for alleged crimes.
Mr Jarvis has failed to make progress on this issue during his time in office. This week, with the scenes of death and repression coming out of Iran, the minister will be pressed to answer the question again.
Time is the factor here that cannot be accounted for as the UK bureaucracy fails to act. The IRGC, meanwhile, can continue to mobilise its networks were it to seek to punish those in opposition to the Iranian establishment.
It is a sad observation that the only sanction the UK is bringing to bear is that, where it does arrest people and hold them without bail, it is punishing them with the enormous wait for a full trial. A group of men arrested for engaging in violence outside the Iranian embassy in May last year won’t face the courts for their trial until the spring of 2027. They will languish in jail in the meantime.
