Ladies and gentlemen, I have an announcement to make: London is becoming a global laughing stock. Both intellectually and literally, Londoners are dying under the weight of a virulent dose of political correctness.

Last week, Transport for London pointlessly buckled to LGBT activists and banned the quintessentially British (and universally polite) phrase, ladies and gentlemen from its station announcements.

Its replacement good afternoon, everyone is deemed more inclusive and gender neutral, although even that might offend those with multiple personality disorders.

In a city that has recently undergone three terrorist attacks, this might seem like a curious use of resource for its Mayor, Sadiq Khan (pictured, main image).

But this is 2017, and whod be surprised if TfL went the whole hog and integrated Xe pronouns into its announcements, or renamed sexist Tube stations such as Cockfosters and Shepherds Bush? (They could re-name Seven Sisters station Seven Persons).

On Friday, this rot spread, when academics at Kings College London decided to swap portraits of its founders for a wall of diversity, after Professor Patrick Leman, the Institutes dean of education, claimed busts of white, bearded men were intimidating and alienating to BME students.

Some concluded any student who felt intimidated by a statue probably didnt deserve a University place at all.

We could discount these two hen-brained incidents as yet more political correctness gone mad.

But they are indicative of a London that perpetually looks down the wrong end of the telescope for micro grievances, yet lacks the guts to tackle very real problems that are staring us in the face.

This obsession with political correctness is not only turning London into a laughing stock, its actively killing Londoners.

The clearest example is the British Polices Stop And Search scheme. Designed to allow police to frisk suspects for concealed weapons, it has long been hated by critics as racist, who correctly point out that 65% of searches are on black men, who are six times more likely to be searched.

Sensing an opportunity to appeal to minority communities, in 2015, while running for London Mayor, Sadiq Khan vowed to do everything in my power to cut stop and search.

In the year to the end of March 2016, there were 387,448 stop and search procedures conducted by police in England and Wales, a fall of 28% on the previous 12 months.

In that same period, Londons Metropolitan Police announced that gun crime in London had soared 42% and knife crime 24%. Recorded crime was up across virtually every category, with a total 4.5% increase to nearly 774,737 offences.

Whod have thought a 28% drop in searches might result in a 24% boom in knife crime? Clearly not Londons Mayor. In one school in his city, 3/4 of ten-year-olds said they knew somebody who carried a knife.

So who is carrying and using all these knives?

British police dont like to publish crime by race or ethnicity. But when data has been obtained under Freedom Of Information Acts, its shown that in the City Of London, 36% of knife crime is perpetrated by black people, who only make up around 13% of Londons 8.6 million populace.

Furthermore, 24% of stabbing victims are black men.

You could conclude its reasonable to stop and search those most likely to be knife criminals. Surely, if black lives truly mattered to Londons Mayor, he would ramp up Stop And Search to help stop black men being disproportionately killed or jailed.

Instead, in April at the end of a week that saw eight fatal stabbings in the Capital, two less than a mile from my home Khan trumpeted his new 1.7m online hate crime hub.

Some wondered: does Londons Mayor seriously prioritise cutting nasty tweets over fatal stabbings?

Similarly, Khan has rejected Prevent, the British governments only anti-terror strategy, as toxic adding its seen by some communities as spying and snooping.

In the wake of the London Bridge terrorist attack that left eight ordinary Londoners murdered in the streets by ISIS jihadists, Khan took every opportunity to remind us Islamophobic hate crimes that included tweets had increased fivefold.

Ive lived in London for 23 years. Not only has its skyscape and its human landscape changed forever. So has its mindscape.

Today, we live in a city where racist statues, Islamophobic tweets and public transport announcements are deemed more pressing issues than tackling terrorism, knife crime or Londons latest malaise, acid attacks.

Ladies and gentlemen, the next train to leave London departs in five minutes. Ill see you at the bar.

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Politically Correct London is Becoming a Global Laughing Stock - Heat Street