London Mayor Sadiq Khan has unveiled a £1.4m fund to tackle knife crime, boasting of a £6,400 award to a London Islamic Centre while maintaining that his budget doesn’t allow him to hire more police.

The announcement this week revealed the Mayor plans to give the tax payer funded Croydon Black and Minority Ethnic Forum £49,736 to “deliver training and support to five grassroots organisations who provide activities for people affected by knife crime in Croydon”. The programme is said to reach “at least 60 people”.

The Somali Relief and Islamic cultural centre — which shares an address with the Learner’s Academy — will receive £6,337 “to deliver five community consultation events for 100 Somali parents and young people in Southwark to raise awareness of knife crime”.

Khan has maintained, throughout his tenure, that he cannot solve London’s crime problems due to a lack of funding from central government. But the Mayor has blown millions on “green” initiatives, hate-crime monitoring, exclusive toilets for London bus drivers, and other vanity projects.

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Hammersmith and Fulham Anti-Tribalism Movement — another organisation already in receipt of UK tax payer cash via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office — will receive £31,173 for the Anti-Tribalism Movement which will go towards tackling “anti-social behaviour affecting young Somali men living in London”.

Mancunian Way will receive £8,650 to reach “100 young estate residents engaged in or at risk of knife crime in Hackney”, while Dwaynamics CIC boxing club will receive £49,780.

The Flavasum Trust — which produces anti-knife crime murals, theatre pieces, and school performances — will get £14,016 “to deliver awareness-raising workshops to 4,000 pupils in 20 London schools in areas worst affected by knife crime, including Newham, Lambeth and Tower Hamlets”, while Raw Material Music and Media Education will get £34,498 to help 50 young people in Brixton “to engage in creative activities and training and employment workshops over 40 weeks”.

The final disclosed cash awards will go to the WISE Youth Trust (£20,000) “to deliver workshops, music production and digital media skills courses for 150 young people in Hackney and Tower Hamlets” and the ML Community Enterprise group (£32,664) which will “deliver a therapeutic support project for 24 young male and female victims of crime and violence in Lambeth”.

Khan said on the back of the announcement: “As Mayor, I’m doing everything possible in London not only to be tough on knife crime, but tough on the causes of knife crime too.

“City Hall has stepped up where the government is letting our young people down. We are providing unprecedented additional funds to the Met police, driving forward a full and comprehensive Knife Crime Strategy and our new Young Londoners Fund will help many young people to thrive, prosper and make the right choices to avoid being sucked into a life of crime.

“Prevention is the most effective tool we have, and with the funds announced today, these community and grass-roots projects will be able to help root out violence within our communities and give more young Londoners the skills, support and aspirations they need to turn away from crime and fulfil their potential.”

The London mayor has presided over one of the fastest growths in crime in recent history in the UK capital, with homicide rising by 27.1 per cent, youth homicide up by 70 per cent, youth violence up 19 per cent, robbery up 33.4 per cent, and home burglaries rising by 18.7 per cent.

Theft went up by over 10,000 incidents in one year since Khan took office, representing a rise of 33.9 per cent. There have been more than 4,000 additional knife crime incidents under Khan than under his predecessor, a rise of 31.3 per cent.

Rape in the capital has risen by 18.3 per cent in the last year, while there were 2,551 incidents of gun crime, representing a rise of 16.3 per cent on the previous year.

Child sex crimes are also up by 30 per cent under Khan, while London’s Air Ambulance have been inundated by the increase in stabbings and related call outs in the last year.

A London-based judge recently warned of the violent use of corrosive liquids, especially acid, in Sadiq Khan’s London, calling it a “serious and growing problem”, adding: “I can state from my own knowledge of the offences arriving at this Crown Court that such offences have risen sharply in the last 12 months.”

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The Mayor has continuously blamed central government “police cuts” for the problems faced, but statistics reveal London only lost around 1,000 police officers (3 per cent) in the past year, reducing the workforce from 31,343 to 30,379. He announced a £6 million flush fund for exclusive toilets for London bus drivers, and a £34 million budget for green projects.

London also boasts over 900 police officers “dedicated to investigating hate crime” — one of Khan’s top priorities as mayor.

The London mayor recently travelled to the liberal SXSW in Texas in the United States to bemoan mean tweets being sent at him, while threatening action against social media firms who don’t crack down on what he calls “hate crimes”.

Raheem Kassam is the Editor in Chief of Breitbart London