Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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The cited article should clearly not be believed. It's cherry picking statistics and painting an unrepresentative picture of the realities of crime in London.
There are many legitimate problems with the Metropolitan Police. In recent years they've suffered from poor leadership and a number of incidents that have undermined public trust. Furthermore, many middle class residents have real frustration with a lack of progress combatting crimes such as bike thefts and burglaries.
My understanding is that political decisions have been made to focus policing on more severe crimes - especially counter terrorism operations and sexual offences. Despite this lack of focus from the Met, the article isn't representative of the IRL vibe I've experienced - my partner continues to feel safe walking around our relatively deprived borough alone at night.
London is a big city, there's room for many experiences. But the Home Secretary got mugged in 2018. There are apparently 50,000 phone thefts a year, especially targeting tourists in the city of Westminster. That's way too many. Furthermore, regardless of how many crimes are happening, the police should be working hard to catch criminals as opposed. Law and order is a core duty for the state, it should not be outsourced.
I'd be happy to see them refocusing to crack down on sexual offences but they're starting from a very, very, very low baseline: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/grooming-gangs-iicsa-racist-fears-b2007649.html
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Like locking people up for tweets?
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