Figures Show Newham as Worst in East London

Do you remember this?

As we recently saw, (here and here) that commitment has been ditched as money is slashed from youth work budgets.

We know that young people are responsible for a disproportionate amount of violent street crime. Indeed, as a candidate, Fiaz made great play of her intention to cut youth crime by investing in young people. It all sounded great. Of course, she hadn’t bothered to research the causal link, but no matter, it was a useful narrative; spend money on young people and this will reduce their involvement in crime.

Then she was struck by the financial realities. She no longer has taxpayers’ cash to splash on things that sounded good.

And then came the crime stats.

Newham Recorder published the figures for January 2025. “The figures show Newham was the east London borough with the most reported crime in the opening month of 2025 with 3,231 reports being made and a 2.9 per cent increase in reports from January 2024.”

Theft, violence and vehicle crime top the lists. But it is an unedifying picture of life in Newham today, (nextdoor have recently given an example of this). Politicians are regularly delighted to take the credit for things that are positive. For some reason they are less enthusiastic about taking responsibility for failure.

In happier times, the following appeared in Newham Voices, ‘“I am committed to ensuring the safety and wellbeing of all our residents,” said Councillor Amar Virdee, Cabinet Member for Community Safety and Crime’. You failed!

In a world where politicians did the honourable thing, we might see the resignation of the cabinet member who has overseen this deterioration in his portfolio area. But don’t hold your breath.