Sadiq Khan launches campaign to tackle disinformation about London

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Sadiq Khan has announced a £7m campaign to combat “lies” about safety in London. His office pointed to research that shows social media users in Japan are being served videos presenting the capital as a den of lawlessness and Islamic extremism. This has become a favourite narrative of the right at home and abroad. At last year’s UN summit Donald Trump called Khan a “terrible mayor” who wants “to go to sharia law”. Meanwhile Reform’s mayoral candidate has claimed that the capital is “no longer safe”. In fact last year London’s murder rate fell to 1.1 per 100,000 people, the lowest level since records began and well below the 2.8 registered in New York, Trump’s home town. This partly reflects the work of London’s Violent Reduction Unit, which was established in 2019 and has focused on the social causes of knife crime.

Read more: ‘Lawless London’ is safer than it’s been in decades