London Mayor Sadiq Khan is under increasingly heavy fire from his predecessor, residents and even President Trump over rising crime in the city – though Khan says police cuts from the Conservative government are to blame.
Boris Johnson, the former mayor who recently resigned as U.K. foreign secretary, tore into Khan in a recent Op-Ed for The Daily Telegraph for glamming it up at movie premieres while crime spirals out of control.
“Sadiq Khan may be a twinkle-toed mover on the movie premiere red carpet, but his pirouettes on the subject of knife crime are a positive wonder. He blames funding (when he was left with a large war chest by me); he blames the Tory Government; he blames society. He blames everyone but himself, when it is his paramount duty to keep Londoners safe,” Johnson wrote. “It is a pathetic performance.”
Johnson is the latest high-profile figure to dive into the debate over London crime. During his trip to the U.K. earlier this month, Trump doubled down on his long-standing feud with Khan, an outspoken Trump critic.
“You have a mayor who has done a terrible job in London. He has done a terrible job,” Trump said in an interview with The Sun, blaming Khan on both terrorism and crime. “I think he has done a bad job on crime, if you look, all of the horrible things going on there, with all of the crime that is being brought in.” – READ MORE
[divider][/divider]London Mayor Sadiq Khan slammed President Trump’s criticism of him as “preposterous” after allowing a giant Trump balloon at anti-Trump protests in London, but critics question whether the mayor should be devoting his energy to tackling crime rather than “embarrassing” the city in front of the whole world.
Trump reignited the feud with Khan in an interview with The Sun newspaper, saying the Mayor of London “has done a terrible job” when it comes to terrorism and crime. “I think he has done a bad job on crime, if you look, all of the horrible things going on there, with all of the crime that is being brought in,” he said.
Khan called the comments “preposterous” on the BBC’s Today program on Friday, claiming that violent crime has risen across the country and London has been forced to tackle the issue with a smaller police budget.
A former ambassador to the U.S., Sir Christopher Meyer, was the victim of a violent attack against him at a central London underground station this week. “I’m absolutely shocked by the level of the brutality,” his wife, Baroness Meyer, told the Times of London. “They really beat him. It’s appalling — like something you would see in a war zone.
Earlier this year, for the first time in modern history, London overtook New York in the number of murders. In February, London’s police investigated 15 murders while New York saw 11 homicides. In March, the Metropolitan Police murder numbers increased further to 22, while NYPD’s jumped to 21. The City of New York has since taken back the lead however.
London is also facing the rise of shocking acid attacks, skyrocketing by more than 78 per cent over the past two years, with 465 such offenses in 2017, up from 260 in 2015, according to police figures obtained by the Evening Standard.
This led to frustrated Londoners airing their concerns about the spiraling crime in the city, all while Khan remains preoccupied with feuding with Trump.
“This guy spends his week getting a balloon of Donald Trump in a nappy put in the air in central London instead of helping us with severe issues. I just think he’s so worried about himself, his reputation and PR rather than portraying the country, the city in the best way can be and making it safe for the citizens,” London business leader Mark Wright, who won the UK’s version of The Apprentice, told Fox News.
“I think he embarrassed himself, he’s embarrassed Britain because no matter what you think of Donald Trump, it’s irrelevant. America is the most powerful country in the world, the office of president has got to be respected no matter who that person is and that wasn’t done and I was very disappointed,” he added. – READ MORE
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