In spring 2016, Sadiq Khan became mayor of London weeks before the UK voted to leave the European Union. Meanwhile, in my youth work in Brixton, south London, signs of a youth violence epidemic started to show.
Thanks to the government’s divestment in public services including schools, youth clubs and the NHS since 2010, violence among young people would continue to rise, year-on-year, until the pandemic forced everyone indoors in 2020 (before soaring again from 2021).
While the Conservatives blamed drill music, increasing policing powers and criminal sentences for knife carriers, Sadiq Khan established the London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU) at City Hall. The department treats violence as a ‘public health’ issue - a symptom of wider social breakdown by working to improve opportunities for young people.
It is no magic wand. But alongside funding free meals for every primary school student and calling for rent freezes in the face of a spiralling costof-living crisis - “it’s important to recognise that we’re in danger of not just pricing out our cleaners, teachers and junior nurses, but head teachers, senior police officers, those in tech, those in the cultural sector,” says Khan — the VRU is an example of Khan’s advocacy for the capital’s most vulnerable.
His new book, , is a personal, practical story and hand book, written from the perspective of a leading policymaker and lifelong south-of-the-Thames resident, who discovered he had adult-onset asthma after
