Is London a crime infested shithole?

[Netcurtainnelly]

Is London a crime infested shithole? 👀

A woman was gang raped after leaving a nightclub, has come up in the news today. I saw someone describing London as a crime infested shithole and it's not a safe place anymore.😫

I lived south when I moved to London at 23 but fell in love with someone from north of the river and moved. Sarf in my bones though.

Thank you!

@Netcurtainnelly It’s so tiresome when people post these type of posts with zero fact checking.

I tell a lie.
Purple lines "mind the grab"

Off topic but my travel card was so cheap back in the 90s!

Do you remember when it was 5p for kids on the bus?

I was thinking recently how much I loved my travel card when I moved to London in the early 90s. It made me feel like I had some kind of access all areas pass (along with millions of others).

I can’t remember that, but do remember paying 30p.

@Wishitwas1996 I felt very adult when I got mine 😆

No.

I don’t get this ‘everything is so dangerous now, you used to be able to leave your front door open’ thing.

Seriously how old are you? Do you remember the 90s and early 2000s? Happy slapping, mugging, teen pregnancy, hoodies, drugs EVERYWHERE, town centres were filled with packs of tracksuited yobbos stealing or trying to nick your handbag, chav culture was a BIG thing. Rape wasn’t really reported - I can think of multiple rapes which happened when I was a teenager that were never acknowledged as ‘crimes’, more unlucky-but-what-do-you-expect-going-out-late-in-that-short-skirt.

No it is not but there are certainly concerns around crime as there has always been in a large city like London

Crime patterns change there is more knife crime but less home breaks ins and car theft which impacted everyone I knew at some point

knife crime didn’t so much in the 80/90’s but every teenager I know has a knife story to tell which is very sad but they don’t seem bothered it’s how life is

It's a narrative that Reform like to push, on the basis that they despise Sadiq Khan. It's also a narrative that Elon Musk likes to push.

I don't live in London, but I've visited frequently for both work and leisure over the years (including twice per week for the past couple of years). I've never felt unsafe there, even as a lone woman of coming home late at night.

I never feel unsafe in London, really. There are 10 million+ people there, so obviously there will be 'more' crime, but on the whole it's safe if you use common sense.

What if they live in the London Borough of Haringey but claim to be in Middlesex?

You could be a true Londoner and support Manchester United. They wouldn't have many fans left otherwise...

And I was born when we had letters followed by 4 numbers. A Cockney is a Londoner. A Londoner is not necessarily a Cockney. But these days you’d practically have to be born on the steps of the church to be able to hear the bells.

Well all the stupid sheep sucking up the Bots and R Wing social media will be sorry soon. Because unfortunately the belief that London is a lawless, Shariah-governed shit hole of a death trap is beginning to affect tourism.

And London is the biggest net contributor to the GDP: 5 times higher than the next contributor, Manchester. Frighten the tourists and the international service industries and finance sector away (even more than the R Wing and Bot driven Brexit thinking did) and the impact will be badly felt by cosy village dwellers across the land.

The OP is an obvious troll

Well indeed. I recall our dial telephones 0-9 and above each number three letters. I don't remember which letters before they were replaced by numbers. My grannie used to answer the phone "town 1234".

When I first came to London it was 01; then 071 then 0171 then 020 7.

Apropos this thread we now have an 020 3 number. London number, Surrey postcode!

Inevitably there are parts of London that feel a bit more unsafe than others. For example i wouldn't want to be in Stratford alone at night, it often feels a bit edgy to me, whereas most of central London like soho, Leicester Square, the touristy bits, feel safer at night as there are always lots of people around, mostly families and groups of tourists. I'm also a bit on edge if I'm on the underground late at night at weekends, as there are often big groups of aggressive drunken blokes, i usually move away from these. I do think it's got a bit worse recently, mostly because of phone theft by men on bikes /scooters. But i think most cities are similar.

I don't remember which letters before they were replaced by numbers.

WHItehall 1212
MUSeum was another exchange and I think ABBey was another.

There's lots of fun things to do. Lots of good food, museums , galleries and culture.

But it definitely is a crime infested shit hole. Thefts are through the rough. ASB and violence as well. And everyone is too scared to say anything about it and intervene.

There are lots of safe nearly crime free cities in the world. Singapore, Hong Kong, Dubai etc we'd love to move to.

Places in Europe as well that are much safer. Hungary, Poland , Czech Republic

Was silly to still not report it at all.

Birmingham is even worse than London. It's completely shit and I hate going there. The only redeeming thing is that some restaurants are nice.

Exactly. In fact, Epsom is considered a very naice area. So YABU.

Yeah, Dubai is so safe right now, it's not like it's getting bombed or anything, right? They're not arresting people for taking pictures either, right?

Indeed.

And there's also a shocking amount of ignorance displayed on some of these threads from people with an incredibly low amount of basic life experience.

There is thread after thread on here from people saying things like: "I'm going to London next week for half term. Should I be scared?" or "Is the underground dangerous?" You'd think they were talking about Khartoum or Mogadishu.

It makes me worry about people's levels of education and awareness, and also the astonishing timidity and fear that people, most of whom are born and bred in the UK, find the prospect of a day trip to a large, affluent capital city frightening.

Have any of these people ever left their village or market town? It sounds like many of them have never been in a large city of any description at all.

When I was a child at a rural primary school we were taken to London and other large cities precisely to inoculate children agains tthis kind of ignorance and parochialism. We went to London twice and Birmingham once. I now live in London but I didn't grow up thinking of it as some terrifying hotbed of vice and sin because the adults around me were sensible enough to understand that it serves no one to raise a generation of kids who are terrified of everything.

Its depressing to think that there are adults in the UK who apparently can't tell the difference between London and Gotham City.