When Sadiq Khan wrote on Saturday that "London is... far from falling apart", even I could not have predicted how soon he'd be proved wrong.

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That evening, scores of rampaging teenagers stormed the Marks & Spencer on Clapham high street, with a handful of police struggling to maintain control. It was an even bleaker picture last night as another crowd of teenagers ran amok, forcing several stores to close and ignoring police orders to disperse.

While the Mayor attended a Labour campaign launch in Islington, Clapham residents were fleeing from the streets and hiding in their homes.

Increasingly, those with no regard for law and order, with no sense of decency or respect for others, are making London an unsafe and unwelcoming place to live or visit.

The Mayor's response is to accuse people who speak out against this sort of lawlessness in our city of spreading "false propaganda", but we can see with our own eyes what's going on. We also know that the only response to this should be an immediate and significant increase in police presence.

We know from the policing of the 2011 riots that this is what matters.

The Metropolitan Police's own review of that significant period of disorder acknowledged that the initial 3,000 officers deployed was wholly insufficient, with numbers later upped to 16,000 before the riots were brought under control with thousands of arrests made.

The scenes in Clapham are, thankfully for the moment, smaller scale. But the principle is the same; arrest the perpetrators and send a clear message that disorder will not be allowed to become the new status quo. 

Disgracefully, the man who should be sorting this out is doing nothing at all. Sadiq Khan doesn't even seem to have commented on the disorder of the last few days, never mind called for greater police action. He finds the time to attend campaign events, to write newspaper columns congratulating himself for London winning another award nobody has heard of, and attacks those who have the temerity to notice what our city has become on his watch as "unpatriotic". An absurd claim from an absurdly inadequate Mayor who is failing spectacularly in his most important duty, to keep Londoners safe.

Susan Hall AM is Leader of the City Hall Conservative Group

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