Sadiq Khan swept into City Hall in 2016 promising to make London safer, greener, fairer. Nine years later, that optimism has curdled into frustration – and anger.
Crime has risen, public transport is expensive and unreliable, and many Londoners feel that the city’s vast £20.7 billion budget delivers very little in return.
The mayor who once styled himself as a unifier now presides over a capital divided by mistrust and fatigue.
The figures are stark. Recorded crime on London’s transport network has climbed by more than half since Khan took office. Knife offences have returned to levels not seen since the late 2000s. Shopkeepers complain that theft and anti-social behaviour go unchecked, while residents in some boroughs say they rarely see a police patrol.
This isn’t simply a matter of statistics; it’s about how Londoners feel when they step onto a bus or walk home after dark. The sense of personal safety that once underpinned the city’s confidence has eroded.
Khan blames central-government austerity and points to recruitment drives within the Metropolitan Police. Yet to ordinary Londoners, those explanations sound remote from daily reality. The perception — and perception counts in politics — is that crime feels more brazen, response times slower, and accountability weaker.
Nowhere is this erosion of confidence more sensitive than in the debate over community security. After several high-profile hate incidents, police have strengthened protection for houses of worship across the capital. Synagogues, mosques and churches alike receive dedicated liaison officers and occasional patrols.
Yet Jewish organisations privately voice concern that resources remain patchy. They welcome the extra attention given to any community under threat but note that visible police presence around some areas is inconsistent. The perception — fairly or unfairly — is that protective policing has become reactive rather than even-handed.
This is not about pitting one faith group against another; it is about whether London’s policing strategy convinces every citizen that they are equally valued. When sections of society begin to feel overlooked, social cohesion weakens — and the mayor bears political responsibility for addressing that imbalance.
Integration or Parallelism?
The question extends beyond policing. London’s extraordinary diversity is both its strength and its challenge. In parts of east London, community networks, predominantly muslim, have become so self-contained that engagement with civic institutions is limited. Local authorities sometimes rely on informal mediators to resolve disputes, a reflection of both cultural complexity and official under-capacity. Disturbingly, Shariah courts now operate in London and other UK cities.
Critics argue that City Hall has failed to articulate a clear integration policy. “Community outreach” initiatives often look more like subsidy than strategy: expensive, short-term programmes that produce reports but little measurable progress – government by headline. The result is a patchwork of local arrangements, some successful, some opaque, many entirely detached from the mayor’s office.
Khan’s defenders counter that London’s size makes uniform governance impossible. But that argument only underscores the sense that the capital is drifting into a collection of semi-autonomous enclaves. The mayor talks of unity; residents experience fragmentation.
Public transport should have been Khan’s political trump card. Instead, it has become an emblem of disappointment. Despite the mayor’s talk of frozen fares, the cost of commuting has risen in real terms. The Tube’s reliability has deteriorated; the bus network is shrinking; cycle routes remain incomplete.
The mayor’s £20.7 billion budget offers little reassurance. It is heavy on slogans — “green transition,” “affordable travel,” “safer streets” — but light on verifiable outcomes. Maintenance backlogs lengthen while new environmental levies and traffic fines multiply. The expansion of the Ultra-Low Emission Zone, for instance, hit low-income motorists hardest and fuelled resentment that City Hall is governing by penalty rather than service.
For many Londoners, Khan’s transport policy has come to symbolise a deeper problem: a mayoralty more interested in virtue signalling than delivery.
The scrutiny of Khan’s £20.7 billion budget by the London Assembly revealed a city government stretched thin by its own ambitions. Spending on communications and “strategic partnerships” has grown faster than investment in policing or road maintenance. Borough councils complain that City Hall’s projects are long on publicity but short on coordination.
The mayor insists that London is thriving — citing cultural vibrancy and green-tech jobs — but on the ground, residents see racial tension, potholes, delayed trains and rising council tax. His third-term agenda reads more like an attempt to protect his legacy than to correct course.
The most dangerous trend for any leader is cynicism. Khan now faces it on multiple fronts. Commuters believe their fares bankroll inefficiency. Small businesses view environmental surcharges as stealth taxation. And within many communities, people feel the mayor listens selectively, responding swiftly to some concerns while neglecting others.
This isn’t to suggest bad faith — but it does suggest political deafness. A London mayor must be visibly impartial, the guardian of a city defined by its plurality. When large sections of the population conclude that City Hall prioritises messaging over fairness, trust collapses.
The policing issue illustrates the point: if some groups perceive over-policing and others under-protection, both lose faith in the system. Khan’s challenge is not simply to balance budgets or manage transport; it is to rebuild the sense that London belongs equally to all who live in it.
London remains one of the world’s great cities — dynamic, creative, remarkably resilient. But it now faces a choice between cohesion and complacency. A metropolis of nine million people cannot function if large numbers believe the rules, the security, or the services work differently depending on where they live or whom they vote for.
Sadiq Khan has the resources and authority to restore confidence. What he lacks, critics say, is urgency. His administration speaks the language of inclusion but often governs through bureaucracy. Until he confronts the everyday realities of crime, cost and community alienation, London’s unease will deepen.
The mayor once asked voters to judge him by whether the city became safer and fairer under his watch. After nearly a decade in power, that judgment is being rendered not in speeches but in daily experience — and for many Londoners, it is far from favourable.
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