London mayor Sadiq Khan has hit back at critics of the British capital and its reputation on crime after data showed the homicide rate fell to its lowest in a decade.
"I'm fed up with these politicians and commentators spamming our social media with an endless stream of distortion and untruth, and this is evidence to the country," Khan said on Monday.
"London is objectively safer than Paris, than Milan, than Rome, than Berlin, than Brussels, than Toronto," he said in an interview. "London is safer than every state in the USA. Two and a half times safer than New York, five times safer than Los Angeles, 12 times safer than Chicago."
Khan said he did not know why Trump and others so often attacked London and him. "It's for President Trump to explain why I'm living rent-free in his head," he said.
"I'm quite clear, we as a city are liberal, we are progressive, we are diverse, we're also probably successful. I suspect that's why President Trump and others with similar views to him attack London the way they do."
"The statistics speak for themselves. London is a safe place to live, work and visit. Thanks to the work of our dedicated officers, violent crime has reduced, and homicides are at their lowest levels since 2014," the Met police said in a press release.
There were 97 homicides in 2025, the lowest since 2014, and London's homicide rate per capita was the lowest since records began in 1997, according to new figures from the capital's Metropolitan Police.
Khan has faced fierce criticism from Conservative and far-right politicians in the UK, as well as from international figures including X owner Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump, who claim that criminality in London has increased.
The Labour party politician, who became London's first Muslim mayor in 2016 and regularly uses his platform to celebrate the capital's diversity, has also faced rising Islamophobic attacks on social media.
'Bearing down'
Violent incidents resulting in injuries were down by a fifth since 2014, while National Health Service (NHS) figures showed the number of people hospitalised after being stabbed in London fell by nearly 30 percent in the last five years.
However, the latest statistics did not include data on other types of crime, including thefts and sexual offences.
Anti-immigration reform
UK last week said fighting crime in London would be a priority for the party going into key local elections in May and mayoral elections in 2028.
Its mayoral candidate, Laila Cunningham, last week claimed that London "is no longer safe", particularly for women.
Phone thefts also continue to plague the British capital, with the Met recording 117,211 stolen phones in 2024, up by around a quarter from 91,481 in 2019.
In response, Khan hailed the results of a recent drive to increase policing in certain areas such as the West End, a tourist hotspot in central London.
"We're bearing down in terms of enforcement," he said, adding that he was "imploring mobile phone companies to do more".
"Why don't they, by having a kill switch, make a stolen phone useless? By denying access to the cloud from a phone that's been stolen, make that stolen phone useless?"
