No one should ever board a bus to school, take a walk in the park, or go on a night out with friends, and never come home. Yet it keeps happening in our city.
Last Tuesday, 17-year-old Ilyas Habibi was stabbed to death near Sutton railway station. He became the 20th teenager killed on the streets of London this year, 17 by a knife. This marks a substantial rise on the 14 teenagers killed last year and ought to heap further pressure on Mayor Sadiq Khan and Met Commissioner Sir Mark Rowley to do more to tackle knife crime. Few will forget the grim record set in 2021 when 30 teenagers lost their lives.
It is neither hyperbole nor recency bias to assert that the capital is experiencing a knife crime epidemic. Between January and the end of October this year, 3,148 people were stabbed, a rise of more than five per cent on 2022, according to data from the Met. But justice is not being served. Just 584 of those crimes have resulted in charges, down 16 per cent in a year.
Speaking on behalf of the family, Ilyas’s brother, Elham, 20, demanded that the bloodshed stop. “It’s outrageous what is happening on the streets of London. My brother must not become just another statistic in this list of young people being struck down in their prime.”
Khan has proved adept at evading responsibility for London’s appalling teenage knife crime. But he is effectively the capital’s police and crime commissioner. Knife crime and how to tackle it — from the benefits of a public health approach to the intelligence-led use of stop-and-search — must form a central plank of the mayoral election campaign.
Because this bloodshed is ending lives and tearing families apart. Elham speaks for a city when he pleads: “We can’t go on like this.”
Scrap the tourist tax
Susan Hall has joined the campaign to bring back tax-free shopping. The Conservative candidate for mayor has written to Jeremy Hunt, urging him to scrap the tourist tax, stating the policy was “not in the best interest for London”.
The Standard has consistently campaigned for the reintroduction of tax-free shopping for international visitors, scrapped by Rishi Sunak in 2021, because it is costing the capital dearly. The Centre for Economics and Business Research found that if the refund were restored, for every £1 refunded in sales tax to foreign tourists, the exchequer would gain £1.56 in other taxes due to the “dynamic economic effects” of tourist expenditure.
Every country in the European Union offers this rebate. We are therefore putting ourselves at a competitive disadvantage, for no material gain. The Chancellor should scrap it.
