Louie French MP has today launched a local crime survey to hear the concerns of constituents as crime across London continues to rise.
In recent months, crime has been the number one issue that constituents in Old Bexley and Sidcup have contacted Louie about, with the Mayor of London’s failure to get a grip on knife and vehicle crime commonly highlighted as prime concerns.
And it is easy to understand why. If you remove the areas controlled by Labour Police and Crime Commissioners, such as the West Midlands and London, knife crime in particular would have fallen across the country. Instead, since Labour took control of London 8 years ago, knife crime is up 49%, sexual offences are up 50% and robberies are up 45%.
There are shockingly bad statistics highlighting the many failures of Sadiq Khan and sadly even in relatively low crime boroughs such as Bexley, we have seen a number of serious incidents in our community in recent months.
It is clear that London needs a new plan and Mayor to get a grip on crime and the Conservative candidate Susan Hall has announced a £200 million plan to make London safer. If elected Mayor, Susan will get a grip on crime by stopping the closure of police stations, keeping more police on our streets, creating more safe spaces for women, as well as new funding for scan & search in knife-crime hotspots. Susan will also set up specialist units to tackle burglaries, robberies, and thefts - crimes which have risen while Sadiq Khan has been in office.
As part of her plan, London will also see the return of borough-based policing which was scrapped by Sadiq Khan in 2018. Since then, his tri-borough policy has been an inefficient disaster, with Bexley’s police force merged with the higher crime areas of Greenwich and Lewisham.
Instead of investing more in the police and using Government funding to recruit over 1,000 additional police officers, Sadiq Khan has wasted millions of taxpayer’s money on his press office and virtue signalling vanity projects. All this, despite a staggering £200 increase in the Mayor’s share of council tax and his continued hammering of motorists across London.
Enough is enough. We have to get a grip on crime and make London safe again by electing a new Mayor in May who will take the difficult decisions needed to make this happen.
This is also your opportunity to let Louie know how you feel about crime in our community and the priorities that you want him to focus on in his upcoming discussions with the police by completing the short crime survey below.
Commenting, Louie said:
Growing up in Bexley life was always relatively safe, with Bexley consistently ranked in the top five of London’s safest boroughs. Issues such as knife crime, which is up by almost 50% since Sadiq Khan took office, were viewed as a distant inner-city issue. Many families thought they had left this behind when they chose a better life in Conservative-run Bexley.
I am therefore pleased that the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London, Susan Hall, has announced a comprehensive package of support for the Metropolitan Police Service to help tackle crime and to make our streets safer. I am especially pleased to see that Susan has joined me in calling for the return of borough-based community policing to ensure that local forces can focus and respond better to local issues.
I would also encourage all residents to please complete my short crime survey so that I can ensure that your views are represented.
Thank you.
