In recent mayors question time Sadiq Khan heavily criticises the 1 billion pound cut in the Mets budget

Street level crime is increasing however there has been a 65% loss in police officers since 2010.

Another anti knife campaign is introduced by the mayor but with no infrastructure in place behind it.

While street level crime is peaking, policing levels are troughing, the Torys are proposing a 1 billion pound cut to the Mets budget which will see the lowest level of police officers in 2 decades. Putting this amount of pressure on a force that needs serious reform and development will not aid it in moving forward with the times.

Sadiq Khan stated in Thursdays mayors question time that he ‘will not apologise’ for the effects the cuts are having on the capitals police force, while conservative Susan Hall emphasised the importance of efficiency within the met. In this rare instance, I see where shes coming from, why throw millions of pounds at a service that misses the mark so many times? and evidently has such a disconnect to the most vulnerable members of society.

So called low level crime has seen a huge rise over the course of 2017, knife crime has increased by 24% and gun crime has almost doubled with a 42% increase since 2016. Although these crimes are associated with youth culture they have a huge impact on communities as a whole, often scapegoated on one small strata of society responsible, they highlight dramatic failings in the way society is structured. Politicians are quick to introduce campaigns that only treat the symptoms.

Sadiq Khan has coined ‘London needs you alive don’t carry a knife’ yet another smoke screen that centres only around ‘positive role models’ instead of reinstating youth services and support in the community. This trivial attempt at tackling the wide spread use of weapons in the capital flirts with the idea that if change is to occur, it will need community backing, however from reading the proposal it is only a 6 month social media campaign with no tangible impact on communities.

Head of the metropolitan police Cressida Dick has said that the further cuts of £600 million will be ‘incredibly demanding’, on top of this the met is meant to save around £400 million. The areas that are going to most effected is the preventative infrastructure, community links that have taken years to build that have actively helped in reducing crime. Dick said herself that there will be more focus on the ‘enforcement sphere’ and less so in the ‘preventative sphere’.