Why do people keep falling for fake Stories about London?”

I’m in London.

Apparently, this means I’ve entered the heart of darkness — the most violent, terrifying place on Earth. According to the usual online nonsense, the streets are full of drug dealers, shoplifters, grooming gangs, and asylum seekers living it up at public expense. Knife crime? Out of control. Muggings? Just part of the daily routine.

It’s so bad I should probably mark myself safe on Facebook.

Except… none of that is true. Yesterday, I had dinner on the Southbank, and caught a film at the British Film Institute IMAX. Today, it’s another gallery, lunch with friends, maybe a few drinks later.

The London I see — wealthy, sophisticated, glamorous — couldn’t be further from the toxic cesspit depicted by social media scare stories. So why do so many people believe them?

---

Why People Fall for the “London Hellhole” Narrative

London is a prosperous, confident, world-class city. It’s also unapologetically liberal and multicultural — and that is what really rattles people.

Far from the capital, some communities feel unsettled by change. The rigid hierarchies they grew up with are breaking down. What used to be solidarity has curdled into neurotic fear of “outsiders.”

Social media amplifies these anxieties. Platforms thrive on outrage, feeding people the content most likely to be clicked, liked, and shared. For someone who’s lonely, anxious about change, and suspicious of foreigners, the algorithm serves up a steady diet of fear — usually with London as the convenient bogeyman.

And then there’s Sadiq Khan. A confident, successful Muslim with the largest personal mandate of any British politician, running one of the world’s biggest cities? For the right-wing imagination, he’s practically the final boss.

---

The Real Crime Problem

This isn’t to say London is perfect. But the city’s biggest criminal issue isn’t muggings or knife crime.

For over a century, London has been a haven for the fortunes of those who might not want to explain how they got rich — Indian maharajas, Latin American dictators, Greek shipping magnates, Russian oligarchs. The City of London, with its intricate network of offshore tax havens, became the global laundromat where legal and illegal money meet, mingle, and become “clean.”

An entire economy grew up around this — luxury hotels, exclusive galleries, security firms, private schools, estate agents, plastic surgeons, high-end restaurants, and fashion houses. It’s white-collar crime on an international scale, hiding in plain sight.

---

London Pays the Bills

Here’s the kicker: London isn’t just surviving — it’s subsidising much of the rest of the country.

For the last 20 years, London and the South East have consistently run fiscal surpluses — raising more in taxes than they receive in public spending. The East of England wasn’t far behind, with a surplus in 13 of those years.

The North East, by contrast, has run a fiscal deficit every single year for two decades. Most of the North West, apart from Manchester, is in the same position.

In other words, the taxes paid by those “snobby liberal elites” in London are subsidising the very towns and villages most convinced the capital is a crime-ridden hellhole.

---

Maybe Say Thank You?

So, next time you hear someone rant about how terrible London is, maybe ask them this:

If London really is such a cesspit, why does the rest of the country rely on its generosity?

---

https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8027

https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/governmentpublicsectorandtaxes/publicsectorfinance/articles/countryandregionalpublicsectorfinances/financialyearending2023