Sadiq Khan: London Is Safe

19 June 2017, 09:30 | Updated: 19 June 2017, 11:05

They Mayor of London told Nick Ferrari that, despite the recent atrocities across the capital, London is safe.

One man was killed and several others injured last night when a van reportedly took a sharp turn and ploughed into a Finsbury Park mosque. 

Following the recent London Bridge and Westminster terror attacks, the incident has once again raised safety concerns.

But the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, insisted to Nick Ferrari that London is still safe. 

He said: "We've got to recognise Nick, that actually these terrorists, however they're inspired, whether it is Islamist inspired terrorists, or others inspired in other ways, seek to fuel division and divide us and we can't allow them to succeed."

The pair went onto discuss Eid al-Fitr and the end of the religious festival of ramadan, with Nick asking whether there would be extra security measures in place. 

Sadiq said: "The Commissioner has agreed, it was her idea, to make sure that there are more police officers across London reassuring those Mosques and other places of worship, people will see extra neighbourhood police officers walking the beat, speaking to communities. 

"I'm afraid he bad news is, that after the London Bridge terrorist attack, we did see a spike in hate crime, a lot of it, a large proportion of it, Islamophobic-focused hate crime."

The Mayor encouraged people to report any hate crime, no matter how "trivial" they think it may be. 

Nick Ferrari then asked Sadiq: "How safe is London, Mr Mayor?"

He replied: "We are safe. You compare London to any global city, and I mean global city. I don't want to compare or contrast and sort of shame other cities, whether it is victims of crime, homicides, we're a safe global city. 

"One of the reasons we can be confident, is our police service, and emergency services work incredibly hard to keep us safe. Last night, for example, members of the community did a great job apprehending this driver and the police were there within a minute and took over.

"And thankfully it appears this is one man, nobody else involved. There's nobody else the police are chasing as I understand it."