Funny, that. While our cosplay patriots do everything they can to talk down this country and its capital city, a majority of people who actually live and reside in London say they feel safe in their home city – making them the only regional demographic in the UK to favour this opinion.
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Is London safe? Opinion varies between locals and others
A poll released by YouGov this week, with over 5,600 respondents, asked participants if they considered London ‘to be a safe or unsafe place to live’. For the most part, the people who live outside of the metropolitan area provided a negative response.
Just 21% of people in Wales deemed London safe, with that figure barely rising to 22% in the North of England. Only 24% held the same opinion in the Midlands, with a minority of 25% sharing this sentiment in Scotland. At 29%, the South of England gives the highest support to a pro-safety view.
Majority of Londoners deem city as ‘safe’
However, these numbers are entirely at odds with the opinions of Londoners. More than 6 in 10 of those surveyed from the city (63%) said they saw their city as a safe place, as opposed to the 33% who held the opposite belief. Indeed, external and internal perceptions of London wildly differ.
It is striking, however, that those who feel safer in London are the ones who live there, day in,day out. Perhaps not so swayed by media narratives and online discourse, lived experience is certainly a major factor in this poll. And the political divides in the numbers are also fascinating…
Around 85% of Reform voters see capital as ‘unsafe’
Liberal Democrat voters are more likely to see London as a safe place, with 49% of their respondents backing the capital, and outnumbering the Greens by 4%. On the flip-side, Reform voters are positively terrified of London, with a whopping 85% of their cohort ranking the city as an ‘unsafe’ location.
Around two-thirds of Conservative Party supporters share that view, whereas things are a little more mixed with Labour voters. Accounting for the 10% who did not choose an option, there’s a 50-40 divide in favour of ‘unsafe’. The full breakdown of results can be seen below: