𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Growing up in London, our capital was rightly considered the greatest city on earth. So it breaks my heart to say this but it no longer feels that way. It really doesn’t. Instead, under Labour Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan, London has become a by-word crime for chaos and criminality. Just look at the latest crime statistics. They’re horrific.  Knife crime is up 68% during Khan’s 10 years in power. Robbery up 50%. More than 100,000 phones are stolen every year. Sex offences are on the increase.

Meanwhile, shoplifting has become so endemic stores are having to employ their own private security guards to police their aisles. All very well for the big supermarkets, you might say, but what of all those small businesses – the local shops, the chemists, the fashion boutiques – which operate on far smaller profits?

Small wonder so many young people are now reported to be leaving the capital to live elsewhere. It’s hard not to conclude that they no longer feel safe bringing up a young family here. As a mother of seven, I certainly don’t.

And where have the Metropolitan Police been during all this?

I can’t recall a time when public confidence in the Met has been so low. But since they have almost zero visibility on our streets, that’s hardly surprising. As a child, everyone knew who their local policeman was. They played a big part in every community. Nowadays, bobbies on the beat are as rare as red phone boxes.

Increasingly, we are told more and more people aren’t even bothering to report burglaries, which is truly appalling considering how traumatic home intrusions can be. But with recent data showing more than 80% of household burglaries in London go unsolved, can anyone blame them?

The sad truth is that the public don’t report crimes because they think the police won’t bother to do anything about it. I myself can sympathise. When my own children were mugged, police told me there weren’t enough resources to investigate.

But God forbid you address someone the wrong way or write something on X that a person doesn’t agree with. Do that and you can be sure two uniformed coppers will be at your front door in a shot.

And heaven help you if you own a motor car in London. The congestion charge has now skyrocketed to £18 just to enter central London – and that’s if motorists can even get there through all the constant roadworks and delays. As for the Ulez scheme, it makes my blood boil the way Khan continues to bill as some sort of green initiative when everyone knows it’s just another way of fleecing motorists out of more money.

Speaking of money, Khan’s always moaning about lack of funding from the Treasury but look how he sprays the stuff around on his own office.

He’s nearly doubled the cost of the Mayor’s staffing budget on pointless bureaucrats, with no fewer than nine deputy mayors swanning around City Hall earning around £150,000 year. What on earth do these people do all day?

It is all of this waste and incompetence which has persuaded stand as the Reform UK candidate for Mayor of London at the next Mayoral election in 2028.

Political pundits scoff that London belongs to Labour. Rubbish. It belongs to the people. It’s true that Sadiq Khan has barely been challenged at the ballot box but that’s because the Tories never bothered to stand anyone credible against him. When I launch my campaign, Londoners will be presented with a genuine alternative.

In the meantime, I can promise you this. I will declare an all-out war on crime – against knife gangs, drug dealers, phone thieves, shoplifters and those rape gangs that have been ignored. I can assure you, they will have nowhere to hide. It will be a reckoning.

I’ll rewrite the Met’s priorities, cut waste at City Hall and consign the hated Ulez scheme to the dustbin.

I’ll get those uncooperative councils moving, allowing developers to build more homes and ensure British citizens get priority when it comes to social housing.

Most of all, I’ll give London back to Londoners. I want a city that works for the people, not the politicians. A city that represents the best of us all in Britain, whether we live there or not. A city once again proud to stand among the world’s greatest capitals. I’m not tied to ideology, my priorities won’t be mine, they’ll be yours. Unlike Khan, I’m not running to serve a personal agenda, I’m running to serve Londoners.