Highlights
- Khan accuses politicians, bots and foreign state actors of talking down London
- Study finds public more than doubles estimate of crime victim numbers
- 35 per cent is the median public estimate of London’s Muslim population, against a reality of 15 per cent
- A third believe London has ‘no-go’ areas controlled by Sharia law
LONDON mayor Sadiq Khan has accused politicians, online bots and foreign state actors of fuelling a false picture of London, as new research found widespread public misconceptions about crime, immigration, religion and life in the capital.
Responding to an independent study by the Policy Institute at King’s College London, Khan on Thursday (10) said London had become a target for “misinformation and organised disinformation”.
“For too long we have seen foreign state actors, politicians, bots and others regularly talking down London, taking advantage of the outrage economy which allows people to profit from the poison, algorithms and rage baiting spread online,” he said.
Khan pointed to crime figures to challenge the perception that London has become increasingly unsafe. Independent evidence, he said, showed Londoners were less likely to be victims of violence with injury than people elsewhere in England and Wales.
London recorded its lowest homicide rate per head since records began last year, he added, and the rate was lower than in several major international cities, including Paris, Brussels, Berlin and Madrid, as well as every major US city.
'Public's perception of crime was significantly worse'
The King's College London study, London has fallen? Misperceptions of crime, race, religion and life in the UK capital, found that the public's perception of crime was significantly worse than the evidence.
A typical respondent estimated that 30 per cent of Londoners had personally experienced a crime between October 2024 and September 2025. The actual figure was 12.2 per cent. Londoners themselves put the figure at 25 per cent.
Half of those surveyed also believed London had the highest rate of violent crime in England and Wales. In reality, it had the lowest rate. London had the joint-lowest rate of sexual offences, despite 37 per cent of respondents believing it had the highest rate.
Overall crime in the capital fell by 1.4 per cent between 2019 and 2025, although some categories increased. Shoplifting and theft from the person more than doubled, while sexual offences and violence against the person also rose.
Religious and demographic perceptions
The median estimate for London's Muslim population was 35 per cent, compared with an actual share of 15 per cent. One in three respondents believed there were areas of London where Sharia law dominates and non-Muslims cannot enter.
Khan said his administration's investment in policing and prevention had helped reduce neighbourhood crime by 14 per cent, including 14,000 fewer phone thefts and a doubling of officers working in central London.
He also stressed that falling crime did not mean the problem had been solved.
“One crime is one too many,” Khan said, adding that he remained committed to investment in frontline policing alongside prevention and intervention through London's Violence Reduction Unit.
Beyond crime, the study found that Londoners and people elsewhere in Britain underestimated the capital's wider standing.
London came first in the 2025 World's Best Cities index, yet only six per cent of respondents thought it ranked first among eight major cities tested.
London is also one of only two parts of the UK that runs a fiscal surplus, with the capital paying more in tax than it receives in public spending. Only 30 per cent of respondents knew this.
Political differences
Reform UK supporters had the most inflated estimates of London's Muslim population, with a median guess of 50 per cent. Their estimate of the proportion of Londoners who had experienced crime was 40 per cent, more than three times the actual figure, while 87 per cent wrongly believed total crime had risen since 2019.
Professor Bobby Duffy, director of the Policy Institute at King's College London, said London had become “a lightning rod in our national debate”, with the idea that “London has fallen” increasingly repeated in political, media and social media narratives.
“People don't just have varying opinions about the capital; they're working from different facts about it,” he said, adding that many were “far too negative about the realities in London”.
Duffy said supporters of different political parties had their own blind spots, with Reform UK and Conservative supporters tending to overestimate crime and the Muslim population, while Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green supporters underestimated some crimes that had genuinely increased.
Khan added, “I’m proud that we are the greatest city in the world. As mayor, I will always stand up and defend our liberal, progressive, caring capital in the face of those deliberately driving these misconceptions for their own gain.”
