Kamran Balayev is an international legal and policy expert, business leader, and former London mayoral candidate.
On Saturday morning, the 19th of April I was campaigning in Central London.
It was broad daylight, families were walking with their children, the mood was lively.
Then two figures, dressed head to toe in black like ninjas, faces masked, sped past on a moped just a few metres from me. They snatched a man’s phone as they drove by, but fumbled and dropped it.
I rushed to retrieve the phone and gave it back to the stunned owner. He barely understood what had happened; the whole thing was over in seconds.
This is the London we are now asked to accept: phone snatching, machetes in broad daylight, teenagers stabbed near schools, watches wrenched from wrists in the street.
This has all become mundane, unless you are, or are close to, the victim. There is no collective shock; it has all become accepted.
We are becoming numb, but we cannot afford to be.
If London is to remain a global capital of innovation, a hub for data, investment, and smart growth, we must clean up the streets. Or London will not quell the stream of people already leaving.
Across the city, fear is now part of daily life. Parents worry whether their children will return home safely. Commuters tighten their grip on their bags. Teenagers avoid walking alone — not at midnight, but at midday. This fear affects decisions to invest, buy a home, start a business, relocate a headquarters.
In The Constitution of Liberty, Friedrich Hayek reminds us: a free society is only possible where the rule of law is respected and enforced. Liberty and law are not opposites — they are inseparable twins. Without security, freedom becomes a fiction.
This is why Conservative values matter now more than ever.
We need safer communities through law and order:
Conservatives believe in something simple but fundamental: uphold the law. Punish crime. Support the police. Because when streets are safe, everything else becomes possible.
Safe streets don’t just protect families. They empower communities and allow businesses to flourish. They give young people the confidence to walk to school, to dream bigger, to stay out of trouble. And they provide an intangible benefit of making people comfortable about deciding to make a life here.
But it is clear from the numbers that London is losing this. Investment in Singapore, Dubai and Italy is racing ahead as people decide London is not a safe place for their staff or their family. So this is more than just a crime problem. It is an economic one.
We cannot rebuild London’s future until we restore order to its present.
We need to see the reality behind the numbers:
This isn’t scaremongering. The numbers tell the story.
Violent crime in London is soaring: knife crime is up by 17 per cent with over 15,000 incidents recorded last year. Robbery is up 38 per cent in just one year. Over 34,000 robberies were logged across the capital in 2023/24 — the highest figure in more than a decade.
When fear becomes normal, a city stops working. People stop walking. Shops stop opening. Tourists stop visiting. Safety isn’t just a moral need. It’s an economic engine.
We can get from chaos to order because Conservative values work:
To change direction, we must stop managing decline and start rebuilding strength.
That starts with Conservative values: responsibility, enforcement, leadership.
Real conservatism understands that liberty without law is an illusion. Let crime run unchecked, and everything else — business, education, civic pride — falls with it.
It also means refusing to hide behind excuses. We don’t need more endless speeches about “root causes” while knives are drawn on schoolchildren. We need action.
Conservative values are not slogans. They are practical tools. They work because they focus relentlessly on what matters: safety, accountability, clarity.
We can make London safe again:
Crime is not inevitable. It is solvable — if we take it seriously.
It takes coordination to break down silos between police, councils, schools, and border authorities. you have to build one mission, one team.
You need visible policing with Officers on foot who are known to the community, trusted by locals and actually feared by criminals.
You need faster responses because seconds matter and calls for help must not be ignored.
You need targeted stop and search. It has to be done legally, transparently, and intelligently — but done. Because the alternative is blood on our streets.
We need gang disruption. If you attack that ecosystem — the money, the status, the recruitment we can protect children before they are lost. We should also tackle anti-social behaviour: Drug use, graffiti, intimidation. These are not minor issues. They are the seeds of bigger crime.
And things that might seem small are not. Fix the broken windows. Clean the streets. Repair the damage. Show that the city cares — and criminals will think twice.
You need safe transport with Police at stations, using knife detection, and more serious enforcement on public transport, and to do that we need to cut red tape. Let police officers do what they are trained to do — not drown them in paperwork.
Prevention is at the root of this: Provide structure, discipline, and purpose in schools where gangs are recruiting and you can nip worse behaviours in the bud.
There’s a choice ahead. I became a Londoner by choice, not by privilege. I came here to study, to work, to innovate, to contribute. But without safety, none of that matters. London is drifting into disorder. We cannot allow that drift to become decline.
We must reclaim the streets, restore the basics, and rebuild belief.
We must remember that freedom and safety are not enemies. They are allies.
And that’s why Conservative values matter — not just because they are right, but because they work.
