Why is everyone hating on London

I know someone in the north west who obsessively posts Bad Khan stuff on her social media, although as far as I know she's never been down south. It's just content she's copy-pasted from far-right accounts.

I suspect you don’t know London that well. It is very large, there are lots of people and lots of boroughs. Some much safer than others of course. And within each borough some parts will be nicer than others. Like everywhere I guess.

One thing we don’t seem to have in my area so much is the loitering in town centres. Because there is no real ‘deserted’ town centre for bored young people to gather in at night. I have definitely seen that in other places outside of London.

I have lived in London for 35 years and never once been tempted to go to the Notting Hill carnival. It’s perfectly easy to avoid it!

anyway, it’s good you’re living somewhere that you are happy, that is all any of us can ask for. Including us Londoners!

Its like saying the countryside is to be avoided because of marauding cows

Utterly ridiculous.

Ordinary no -gang involved Londoners do not carry knives (or anything) to protect themselves. And London does not have the highest incidence of violent crime per capita.

Millions (many millions!) of Londoners and even more millions of visitors go about their business in peace and safety.

Fine to stay away if London and its attractions are not your thing, but to stay away for fear: your loss

Certain sectors have definitely used racist slurs against him

Nothing to do with the man’s colour of skin. It’s what he’s done that’s the issue .

@Whammyyammy

So we agree. Life in the West Country is peaceful, life in London you may need a knife to protect yourself from being stabbed.

What ridiculous hyperbole. I've lived in London for 30 years and have never had any contact whatsoever with knife crime.

Knife crime affects very young men, it doesn't impact at all outside a very small demographic. It's a tragedy and horrendous if you're impacted but has absolutely no effect whatsoever on people outside that demographic.

The vast vast majority of Londoners aren't affected by knife crime, let alone visitors.

I've been to (and lived in) some really dangerous cities where there are no go areas for non locals. Nothing in London, even in the shadiest parts, comes close to this. I honestly think positioning it as some hell hole where people have to constantly protect themselves against knife crime is irresponsible.

Personally I would ban Notting Hill carnival - poor track record on peaceful celebrations and created colossal amounts of mess in a residential area and has been like that for very many years, my H was working in Ladbroke Grove area in mid 90s and it was a rat fest and nicking bonanza even then at carnival time - I would say the same by the way if it was a celebration of ‘any’ colour, creed or religion that had such a record .

Yes - it’s an urban environment. If you’re not cut out for cities, it’s absolutely right that you should stay away from them, just like people should stay out of the country if they can’t cope with having to drive everywhere, can’t cope living somewhere where job opportunities are scarce and work is poorly paid, and where there’s fuck all to do at night, which means your kids scarper as soon as they reach adulthood.

So you think 9 million population of london carry knives? What a narrow minded way to view the world

Or alternatively, if you're not caught up in gang related activity life is more likely to be peaceful, but if you are - regardless of your location - you may feel your safety is sufficiently under threat to carry a knife?

Is that helpful? As another example, I live in London and like most people have no experience whatsoever of either being in a gang or carrying a knife. Did it occur to you that the things which make the news do so because they're outwith the norm and therefore considered worth reporting on?

So we agree. Life in the West Country is peaceful, life in London you may need a knife to protect yourself from being stabbed.

This is why I avoid London unless it's Heathrow airport

What a nonsensical comparison

People take knives to protect themselves. They shouldn’t, but they do because they feel at risk, and many have had friends injured in gang related violence. It doesn’t exist in the West Country, because there isn’t much gang activity in the West Country.

Plus the cost of Glastonbury is a good way of ’sieving out’ the most deprived people in the country, who also happen to be the people living in the sort of social chaos that breeds violence.

To be clear the reason they're not checking anyone "on their way in" is because there isn't a "way in".

It's ridiculous to try and compare carnival to Glastonbury festival though. For starters when you go to Glastonbury you need to buy a ticket (which in itself rules out a lot of people because of the cost) and then you need to get that ticket checked at the gates. Which is a pretty good time to have security turn away anyone with weapons. There are no gates to carnival, you just rock up and join the crowds and ANYONE can come along. Sure there are police but they're not checking people on their way in (and I agree that the Met are a disgrace anyway)

No. Not everything revolves around a festival. But I like music. Its the only city one I know with so much violence.

So you think that everything about London can be summarised by one annual cultural event that most people don't go to and have little knowledge of? Seriously?

Although two million people do go to it, so IIRC that's around ten times as many as Glastonbury.

I don't like any big cities tbh. As for London, I'll leave my comments until after Stabfest 25 aka Notting Hill carnival this Saturday.
I don't understand why folk take knives to a music festival. I live in the southwest and we had no stabbings at Glasto.

@Thepeopleversuswork I’ve lived all over , lots of nice areas including leafier nicer bits of London and am originally from a midlands mining town - and the only place ( we live in Bath) I actually miss living is London - ( we do go a lot for work stuff though) I liked the fact that every weekend I could go to different areas on the tube/ train so easily - be it Notting Hill or Walthamstow or Hampstead Heath or Richmond or Spitalfields or Greenwich - it gave a lot of easy variety. My caveat is it’s a much easier place to live with a good income, knowing a few friends and/or secure housing -

In-laws are right outside Newcastle and I go there only to take the train to Edinburgh instead.

Edinburgh and London are way more friendly than Newcastle, ime.

Plenty of people suppprt ulez. Plenty of people also use public transport to visit friends.

Indeed. I've walked past the Tower of London earlier today and it was mobbed. I shudder to think what South Ken tube is like.

I'll point out that Edinburgh is also a capital city, also full of tourists and also has many parts which could usefully be described as shitholes (I know it well) but I have yet to see one similar post about it, yet alone the number directed at London.

How come it's so full of tourists from all over the world then?

So your main concern is for people who live in the west end of london? Isn't the west end already clogged up with traffic? Isn't the bigger picture to reduce motor vehicle use over all in cities, as they are already doing in other parts of the world?