Sadiq Khan is blaming the surge in recorded crime on falling police numbers — but figures show the annual decline could be plugged by redeploying ‘hate crime’ officers from London alone.

The London mayor has suggested that the crime wave overtaking England and Wales — and Britain’s multicultural capital, in particular — is a consequence of falling police numbers, in an opinion piece published by the left-liberal Guardian.

Figures reported elsewhere in the newspaper do show a fall of some 930 officers over the last 12 months, to 121,929 overall — but this represents a reduction in total manpower of less than 1 per cent.

Meanwhile, recorded crime rose by 14 per cent overall across 44 police force areas in England and Wales — including a 32 per cent rise in domestic burglary, a 29 per cent rise in robbery, a 23 per cent rise in sex offences, a 21 per cent rise in knife crime, and a 20 per cent rise in gun crime.

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