Square Mile strikes back: how the City of London is fighting disinformation about crime
“Just visit London and you’ll see that it’s filled with crime,” the tech billionaire Elon Musk said as he was beamed into Tommy Robinson’s far-right rally in the UK capital last September,The comments by the SpaceX and Tesla boss, part of a roving speech that was later condemned by the UK government, added to a growing wave of anti-London disinformation that has spread in recent months,That includes Donald Trump’s notorious comments of London “no-go zones” and Nigel Farage’s warnings against wearing jewellery after 9pm in the West End,But the panic over antisocial behaviour and petty crime plaguing the capital has burst out of rightwing circles and social media platforms and into City boardrooms and diplomatic meetings, raising the hackles of state officials and influential financial sector bosses who fear that, if left unchecked, trade, recruitment and business investment could suffer,“Nobody’s saying ‘it means that I won’t invest in the City’,” said Susan Langley, the City of London’s mayor.
“But anything that undermines the City has the potential to undermine business.Which is why I went out and said we need to start countering this.”Langley plans to use her one-year term as the Square Mile’s regal figurehead to correct and counter anti-London rumours.She expects her campaign to start with meetings with financial sector bodies such as UK Finance, TheCityUK and the Investment Association, to craft and disseminate messages about London’s strengths.They will be “pragmatic, simple, key lines” that will centre on London’s “talent, availability of capital, that it’s a nice place to live and work … the whole ecosystem”, Langley said.
“I’m not expecting everyone to stick to the same lines, but if we can get the message out that this is what we should be doing, then it’s like kind of rippling a pond,”Bosses will be handed the very un-British task of being relentless cheerleaders for the UK’s capital,“It’s a natural British reticence,” Langley said,“But I think we’ve got worse over the last five or six years,People are not putting their head above the parapet and saying what they think.
“If they’re at a conference or at their meeting with key clients or something, get into those.And then perception is reality.And hopefully we can start to turn it back.”Without it, she says, disinformation could prevail.Langley was only two weeks into her term last November when Gulf state bank executives started asking whether they and their families would be safe in London, citing horror stories about rampant phone snatching and watch muggings.
“I went, ‘Hold on a minute, I’m not saying that the city is perfect, but no city is perfect.There’s always crime.’ I said: ‘But we’re one of the safest cities in the world.What are you talking about?’ And they actually looked quite taken aback.And I thought that was a one-off, and then it happened again.
”That was followed by comments from another Gulf state banker, and then bosses from a US firm, asking whether a colleague should bring her jewellery on a trip.Most cited concerns raised on social media.“It’s is not some lawless city where you’re swept away in a tsunami of crime.I said, I feel perfectly safe walking around the city.”The statistics do not support the perception of London as a centre for crime, something that is being blamed for an apparent exodus of the super-rich (along with raised taxes).
Recent figures showed London’s murder rate at a record low, far below other big cities, including New York,And, in a city that is home to about 9 million people, Londoners are less likely to be a victim of violent crime than people across the rest of England and Wales,Reports of phone theft fell by 28% to 213 in the City of London, which has its own police force, in the first four months of 2025, compared with the same period in the year before,Meanwhile, luxury watch, handbag and jewellery theft are all down in London, according to figures from the Met police,But one London executive said that concerns were even being raised in diplomatic circles, with UK representatives having to reassure businesses that London was a safe place to work.
“What we tend to hear is about chronic levels of antisocial behaviour.”The executive said there had been “persistent low-level background noise” for about a year, but that it tended to come from people who were far less familiar with the capital.“London is one of safest cities in the world, and safer than most comparable US and European cities,” he said.“Some of this feels planned and deliberate: an attempt to damage London and, from an economic perspective, weaken the UK.”Several City bosses said they had heard rumours that the disinformation could be linked to Russia, but emphasised that no concrete evidence of that had emerged.
Langley stopped short of raising suspicion about any single source but agreed that “it feels like an active disinformation campaign”.She added: “Naturally, it would benefit any other financial centre.Because if they’re trying to undermine the City that’s obviously a sweet spot.But genuinely, nobody has suggested where it comes from.”The debate over the supremacy of one financial centre over another is long-running.
Brexit played a part in this, pitting London against rivals, including Paris and Frankfurt, for business and talent,More recently, the cluster of UK companies choosing to list their shares on New York stock markets has put the City’s status in the spotlight,Recruitment and overseas talent could be the first casualty of the dis- and misinformation about London, Langley said,“It might just make people think twice about whether they want to come and work in London or expand,But these are ad hoc conversations so it’s really difficult to analyse this, which is why I think it’s really important that we nip this in the bud now.
”One executive at a London-based bank said they had seen no impact to date: “We hire a lot internationally, and never faced anyone raising this, or from investors.It’s not having an impact right now … but we don’t want to get to a point where it is.Otherwise it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.”Ministers are keeping an eye on the issue.A government spokesperson said they were “working with international partners and industry leaders to counter malign activity online”.
They said: “Such tactics often aim to destabilise countries, impacting trade and investment,We take these threats seriously,The facts tell a different story – business investment is at a 20-year high and the UK is one of the safest countries in Europe,We are open for business and will continue to fight false narratives online which say otherwise,”For now, Langley says it is about taking control of the narrative.
She said: “We had the Team GB spirit around the Olympics.So where’s the Team UK spirit around politely, and in a very British way, standing up for our industries, our city and all of the good things that we can actually do? We’re never going to be the US, but at least we can do it in our own British way.”
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