We should be proud of our great city, but also clear-eyed about its failings on housing, crime and the cost of living, says Lawrence Newport

London is like nowhere else on earth. As Matt Clifford said last week at Looking For Growth’s event Make or Break, London is the city that birthed the electrical age, the steam locomotive and the stock exchange. Its institutions created modern policing, public sanitation systems, and underground train networks; its principles formed the basis of numerous legal and electoral systems worldwide.

We should be proud of our city’s history, of its people and of its beauty. But we must be clear-eyed: London is not the city it once was. The Metropolitan Police and Sadiq Khan’s dangerous policies are failing us. Last year, shoplifting increased by 54 per cent and theft went up 41 per cent. In fact, two in every five phone thefts in Europe happen in London, and a knife crime ‘incident’ happens every 30 minutes – most of which remain unresolved.

Housing has become completely unaffordable. In 2024, 44.6 per cent of the........

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