Inside the Met’s West End crime crackdown

Dear Londoners — how are you on this drizzly Monday? It's Hannah here. This weekend, I saw The Line of Beauty at the Almeida (very entertaining), spent time at the Museum of the Home (a little disappointing and sparse, post-renovation — please let me know if you agree in the comments below), at the Wenlock Arms (beautiful, and featured in this very publication just last week) and the Prince Charles Cinema (I went to watch Blade Runner on the big screen which, along with obligatory big popcorn and Pepsi, was the perfect Sunday scaries distraction). As much as I miss daylight, there's an undeniable pleasure to the city when the nights start drawing in and temperature falls — everybody bundled up in coats, the scent of wood smoke in the air. Let us know what you got up to down in the comments below, and if there's anything you'd recommend.

In this Monday briefing, we're discussing the Met's new crackdown on "low level" crime in the West End, including phone thefts and shoplifting. Elsewhere, there's George Lucas' new mansion, the Lady Mayor's Show and perhaps the best Vietnamese restaurant in the city.

Big story: The Met’s war on West End crime

Topline: The Met have announced the force has arrested over 140 people as part of a crackdown on crime in the West End.

What happened: The arrests were part of a new operation that has run over the last week called Operation Baselife. It was essentially a plan to deploy dozens more officers in the West End to try and crack down on low-level crimes like phone theft, shoplifting and antisocial behaviour that have become particularly rampant in the capital’s core. The arrests included two phone thieves operating at an ice rink in Leicester Square, a prolific upskirter who targeted women queuing for the bathroom in a coffee shop and two men caught driving a stolen vehicle near Paddington. 

A coup for the Met: The operation is something of a PR coup for the embattled police force as the Met has faced a long line of critical stories in recent months. That included an undercover BBC exposé that recorded officers at the nearby Charing Cross police station saying that an illegal migrant deserved a "bullet through his head", among other racist and misogynistic comments.

But a big part of the story is the fact that it was targeted at low-level offences — like phone theft — that the force have been increasingly accused of failing to get to grips with. Indeed, phone thefts alone have shot up 25% between 2019 and 2024, with just 1% leading to a conviction. In doing so, it cuts to the core of the ongoing panic about crime in the capital.

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"Broken Windows": Experts, politicians and the media have been grappling with a bit of a mystery in recent months: why is it so many people think crime is rising in London when most data suggests the exact opposite. Indeed, violent crimes have dropped by 12% in 2024—25 alone and the capital’s murder rate is at a five-year low that puts its rate far below the likes of New York, Paris or Berlin. 

There’s lots of factors that play a role in the perception of worsening crime (no doubt including where people get their information from). But one of the leading explanations is an offshoot of the “Broken Windows” theory, which suggests visible signs of crime like graffiti or broken windows going unfixed create an environment that encourages worse crime. Some experts believe a natural corollary of that is that when certain very visible low-level crimes get worse, like phone thefts, it also gives the feeling to the average person that crime as a whole is out of control, even when it isn’t.

The future: You can see how that has factored into the Met’s thinking with the operation by just reading their press release, where they dedicate large sections to the fact “neighborhood offences” like theft and robbery are down 15% this year and Met officers are arresting “1,000 more criminals every month compared to last year”. It remains to be seen if it will dent the inaccurate but rampant public perception of a crime wave.

Your news briefing

🌲 Back in April we ran a dispatch from Whitewebbs Park, where locals were outraged over the felling of an ancient tree by Toby Carvery (and some who suspected, without reason, that Tottenham Hotspur were involved). Well, last week the saga ended up in the Guardian, as an expert arborist told the paper the 500-year-old tree could be revived if it is provided the right “life support” by the carvery giant (by “life support” in this case they mean a sprinkler system). 

🎉 It was the Lady Mayor’s Show on Saturday. For those of you who missed (or were unaware of) the pomp-filled event, it's basically a procession that celebrates a new mayor being appointed for the City of London. This year’s iteration — which featured Pearly Kings and Queens, Highland bagpipe bands and dancing red dragons — was a little different than usual, as it was celebrating the first Lady Mayor in its 800-year history: Susan Langley. (There have previously been two women in the role, but they didn’t opt to use the title Lady Mayor). A financial services industry veteran and former Home Office official, Langley will fill the mostly ceremonial position for the next year. There’s some great pictures of the event in this Sky News piece.

🚘 Headlines of tabloid newspapers were filled with news of a war on motorists in Islington in recent days after the council supposedly announced a new 10mph speed limit (“even cyclists are speeding”, complained the Telegraph). The Daily Express quoted the “campaigner” Howard Cox suggesting the decision shows the “complete stupidity of the road transport planners” (though it failed to mention that Cox was a former Reform UK mayoral candidate who left the party for the far-right Advance UK this year after he was criticised for defending Tommy Robinson). The only caveat, which only appeared at the bottom of all of the pieces in question, is the council clarifying that the speed limit was actually a temporary safety measure for a short strip of road while it undergoes road works.

📽️ Star Wars creator George Lucas has bought a £40m mansion in St John’s Wood, The Times reports. Sadly, there aren’t any pics of the pile (it was sold off-market), but it’s said to be one of the biggest residential property transactions this year. While there’s no word on why Lucas bought his home, it follows a host of stories of wealthy Americans buying property in the UK to escape the current Trump administration.

In case you missed it…

• On Friday, we told the story of a remarkable grave hidden away in a cemetery in Mortlake — and the man it commemorated, Sir Richard Francis Burton. A controversial explorer who shocked Victorian Society he was the inspiration for the likes of Bram Stoker’s Dracula and Lara Croft’s father, Richard Croft
• On Wednesday, ahead of the government we delved into the world of local government finance, to find out how a £205m mansion in Hyde Park pays less council tax than a flat in Croydon, and why so many people think the council tax system is failing the capital’s councils. 
• On Saturday, we un-paywalled Huw Lemmey's piece on Dolphin Square, one of the capital's most notorious apartment complexes, and once a hot-bed of spies, cocaine-fuelled orgies and illicit gay affairs — now set to be turned into bland luxury flats.

Wining and dining

With endless offerings and non-stop openings, we all know that deciding where to eat and drink in the capital can be fraught. We want to make it easy — so every week we’ll give you our insider guide to the city’s best spots. 

One perfect meal: Though Hoxton used to be the place to head for decent Vietnamese food in the capital, it’s long been eclipsed by restaurants in the south east of the capital, particularly around Deptford. It’s impossible to go wrong at the pleasingly named Eat Vietnam Bar B Grill, which serves some of the city’s best food at its two sites (just seconds up the road from one another, the second acts as an over-spill for the first, to give you an idea of how well-loved this place is). The decor is slightly and sweetly retro, homely: bright illustrations of thung chai, jewel-coloured lanterns, dark wood; the service is unfailingly warm. Although there’s an emphasis on grilled meats — lemongrass quail, say, or house marinated ribs — the restaurant serves all the stapes, including phở, búnand bún bò Huế, and there’s also a large and delicious vegan range. Everything I’ve ever ordered there has been excellent (and the long line that forms outside each Friday night can attest to the fact that it possesses one of the best phở broths in London), but slightly less well-know favourites includes the Bánh Cuốn Nhân Chay (a rice-batter roll with wood ear mushrooms) and Bánh Khọt (savoury coconut pancakes with tiger prawns).

One perfect drink: There’s a lot of places that could make a case for being the most idiosyncratic pub in London, but none of their arguments would ever eclipse the Macintosh Ale House. Perched in a Victorian-looking stable yard in Stoke Newington, the paired back micropub has precisely two drinks it offers from behind its bar — a sparkling keg pale ale and a cask bitter, both made by its eponymous owner Charlie Macintosh. Barely the size of a single room, the pub looks to have a sparse interior on your first encounter, but behind the scenes a lot of thought and love has gone into it (including ledges the perfect width for a pint glass). It’s worth getting over soon, as the once-cult pub is fresh from a spot on Time Out’s top 50 pub guide, and is therefore undoubtedly set for a storm of new patrons.

Our favourite reads

Folkies, the shop bringing the world’s music to Kilburn — Chris Allnutt, Financial Times (£)
Founded in 2008, Folkies started life in a former accordion shop, which in the early 20th century had been the capital’s premiere seller of the instruments. Now, it’s a treasure trove for instruments of all kinds: a 1921 Gibson mandolin (£2,499), a 1977/78 Fender USA Stratocaster (£2,495), a banjolele signed by musician George Formby. A tender tribute to the capital’s idiosyncratic gems.

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Was the Millennium Dome really so bad? The inside story of a (not so) total disaster — Imogen West Knights, Guardian 
In this long read from 2020, West Knights revisits the narrative of failure that dogged the early years of the Millennium Dome — now the O2 Arena — and questions whether it was truly deserved. It’s a tale of New Labour legacy projects, compressed time frames and competing public-private loyalties, a mix perhaps best summed up by this line: “Zaha Hadid’s mind zone was sponsored by the arms manufacturers Marconi and BAE systems.”

To Do List

1. Head to the ICA this Sunday for the beginning of the London Palestine Film Festival 2025, which opens with Kamal Aljafari’s With Hasan in Gaza (with a Q&A). The documentary is assembled from footage filmed in Gaza in 2001, when Aljafari went in search of a prison‑mate from 1989, recently discovered on MiniDV tapes. A heartbreaking meditation on time, loss and trauma.

2. It’s November and the inevitable rise of Christmas festivities is upon us. If you feel like getting your holiday spirit going nice and early, Christmas lights are getting switched on Covent Garden, Marylebone, Bond Street and Old Spitalfields Market on Wednesday, followed by Leadenhall Market the next day and Chelsea at the weekend. 

From the archive

Journey back to 1960s Hampstead with playwright John Mortimer. It’s a portrait of the neighbourhood in a momentary downturn, its grand houses divided into poky flats, a glimpse of the area before it reverted to being one of the city’s most expensive. By turns delightful, poignant and deeply depressing (particularly the “whites only” stipulation on an advert for a flat).