Ello, ‘ello, ‘ello, what’s all this then? It is a new year but the same old lines from Sir Mark Rowley, the permanently under-fire chief of the Metropolitan Police. Britain’s top bobby has been copping a fair bit of flack recently, amid never-ending questions about the behaviour of London’s bobbies and criticism of the capital’s crime rate. But now, days after Reform UK announced Laila Cunningham as its mayoral candidate, Sir Mark has used an interview with – where else? – the Financial Times, to hit back at his critics. Who needs the ‘thin blue line’ when you’ve got the pink ‘un for cover, eh?
Rowley denounced ‘commentators’ and those who ‘promote narratives that suit them’, citing new figures which show the number of homicides in London falling to its lowest rate since 2014. According to Met data, some 97 people were murdered in 2025, which at 1.1 per 100,000 was the lowest since comparable records began in 1997. ‘This is an extraordinarily safe global safe city’, Rowley insisted. ‘London is safer than every US state, or thereabouts, let alone the big cities.’ He told the paper of his frustrations at the perception that London is not safe, saying that ‘you only have to look online’ to see ‘a crazily polarised public debate. I find that quite sad and quite frustrating.’
He went on to insist that ‘I think some people just want online clicks, some people are angry with the world generally.’ Over to Reform UK to respond to that one…
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