London saw the new year in with another potentially preventable tragedy on Greater London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s watch. Harry Pitman, a 16 year old young man was on Primrose Hill in North London celebrating the end of 2023. Tragically because he was stabbed to death by currently unknown assailants, he will not be seeing this or any other year. It’s another life lost because London is not properly policed and another horrific statistic to further tarnish the reputation of Sadiq Khan the Greater London Mayor in his role as the Metropolitan area’s Police and Crime Commissioner.

Press reports, such as this one from the Daily Mirror, are stating that this tragedy started with an altercation but even if this is the case it’s no justification for a fatal stabbing. It’s indicative of how bad public safety in London has got that over the last few years dozens of people have been murdered because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time or looked at someone the wrong way. London has always had people within it who will kick off violently at the drop of a hat, I know I grew up there. However in the past such people could be avoided by for example not drinking as the same pubs and clubs as them or avoiding areas with a known reputation for violence. Now the number of people who are not just violent in attitude but willing to use violence seems to have grown exponentially in London and the chance of being a victim of violence in London no longer hinges on being in a bad area or a bad pub, appears to be so much greater and less easy to avoid. Primrose Hill ,whilst becoming less safe than it once was according to local residents quoted in the Mirror, would back in the day be considered as relatively safe, at least compared to somewhere like Hackney or Stratford or parts of Lambeth and Southwark. Nearly everywhere is risky now. Under Khan’s watch and the Metropolitan Police’s stewardship, violence is ubiquitous and the public seem to becoming desensitised to it all, until of course the violence comes for them and their families.

2023 was worse than 2022 for teenage homicides with 21 teenagers murdered in 2023 and ended with the awful tragedy of Harry Pitman’s senseless murder. Even this appalling figure is underplaying how bad things are as these are only the murders of teenagers presumably by other teenagers, it doesn’t account for other murders where the assailants and victims are older. According to Murdermap, there were 103 cases of murder or manslaughter in London in 2023. Public safety in London is declining under Khan’s watch and 2024 looks to be just as unsafe and violent for Londoners if not more so than the year just gone. The Met Police is being sorely mismanaged and until that situation changes for the better, Londoners will continue to be in danger of violence and Khan will continue to deny his role in this worsening situation.