And rather than stoking pride, I thought "what a load of bolx".
London is not The Greatest City In The World because there is no definitive ranking of world cities, nor any agreed set of criteria. And the more I read the list underneath the more holes I pulled in the Mayor's case.
» Being "regularly voted #1 city in the world" proves nothing, indeed many cities achieve this accolade depending on what's being voted for and by who. London was crowned the World's Best City for 2025 in the annual ranking by consultant group Resonance, also the best city in the world by intelligence experts BestCities. However New York City was named the best city in the world for 2025 in Oxford Economics' Global Cities Index, while Paris is the best city in the world according to Euromonitor International's Top 100 City Destinations ranking. London was second in the Oxford list and merely fifth in Time Out's 50 best cities in the world in 2025, because nothing's cut and dried.
» "Incredible diversity with 300+ languages spoken" is not a pre-requisite for greatest city, just a nice to have. A quick Google search reveals that New York is host to more than 800 spoken languages, ditto Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, while Jakarta in Indonesia tops 700. London is way behind.
» "World-class transport" isn't a superlative, merely a subjective ranking. Many would argue that London shares its world-class tag with Tokyo, Seoul, New York, Berlin, Paris and Beijing, then sink into bitter recriminations about what precisely world-class means and why their favourite city's been missed out.
» "World leader in finance, tech and life sciences" is better, with New York, London and Hong Kong unarguably the top three for financial dealings. But Silicon Valley may outdo London for tech, and you can't really argue that Oxford/Cambridge are part of London for life sciences purposes, and is this really what makes a greatest city?
» Do we have the "best museums and galleries on the planet"? New York has more art galleries than London, Paris has more art museums and indeed more museums overall, plus the world's most visited museum which is the Louvre. You could argue that the quality of London's museums is better but that's all getting terribly subjective... which is precisely what art is.
» As for "world-leading nightlife" no way, merely world-class which is something different. Cities with claims on the top spot include Las Vegas, Paris, Bangkok and Madrid, whereas if I check Time Out's latest Top 20 then London doesn't even feature, indeed locally they just list Brighton.
» "Like a certain type of food, niche sport or music? You can get it in London." is somewhat desperate. London's cultural spread may be vast but you can't claim everything is here because it plainly isn't. Not every sport is played in London, nor can you go out of an evening and enjoy hearing Fijian musicians, and even The A to Z of London Food blog gave up when they got to Chad.
» "Home to the world's best sporting events" is either subjective or incorrect, because as soon as you name a great sporting event outside London this claim falls apart. The Super Bowl, the America's Cup, the Winter Olympics, every single golf major, QED.
» "Home to seven premier league clubs" suggests that whoever was compiling this list was running out of ideas. Admittedly no other UK city has more than two, but this is a list the rest of the world can't take part in because it's 100% UK-specific. It's like Americans claiming their major baseball competition is the World Series, then wondering why the rest of the world laughs.
» "Globally-ranked universities" is possibly the worst submission so far. Every university is globally ranked, it's just that it may be 39,407th rather than 2nd. At best London has two universities in the global top 20, admittedly better than New York and Paris but what on earth are we trying to prove here?
» "A city where you can be who you like and love who you love" is both a proud statement of civil liberties and a bland mayoral buzzphrase. Support the wrong pressure group or walk into the 'wrong' toilets and you may find London's not as friendly as it looks. Also most UK cities could make exactly the same claim, be that Liverpool, Manchester, St Albans or Brighton, and several world cities are friendlier places to be.
» "A place for everyone" is a truly bum finish. Millions would love to live in London but can't afford it, the cost of housing having skyrocketed to impossible levels, and that's before you get onto the heated issue of immigration. This final statement is an utterly admirable aspiration, and perhaps broadly true, but you can't use it to claim that London is the greatest city in the world.
I should at this point say that the Mayor of London didn't actually write this rubbish. He likely signs it off but he has a team that writes his social media stuff for him, maybe one specific employee. Pushing the Mayoral agenda, promoting the capital and getting the tone of voice right is a tough call, and generally they do a good job. Over the summer however I have had the feeling sometimes that an intern's been left in charge because there've been some proper duff posts. This was theworst.
On the surface it was a cheery thumbs up to the Mayoral cycling agenda, a concerted attempt over many years to make travelling on two wheels safer, easier and more appealing. But look closer and you'll see the news story being quoted was by Secret London and that should have set alarm bells ringing regarding exaggeration and truth.
The article in question was titled "London Has Officially Been Named Europe’s Favourite City For Cycling – Overtaking The Likes Of Amsterdam And Paris", a headline with typical Secret London bombast and questionable use of the word 'Officially'. When I see an article's been written by Katie Forge my first thought is "has she nicked one of my photos again?" and my second is "what mind-sucking sugar-coated pap has she churned out this time?"
Read on and you discover the 'official' data is courtesy of ferry and cruise operator DFDS whose unscientific methods involved "analysing major cities based on various factors including cycling infrastructure, terrain, weather, and online search volume". It turns out London wasn't top, nor even in the Top 10, having been beaten by proper cycling nirvanas like Helsinki, Strasbourg and Amsterdam. London was merely top of The Internet's Favourite Cycling Cities, a list based solely on "average monthly search volume for cycling-related terms in each city obtained via Google Keyword Planner", an entirely pointless metric.
What's worrying is that the Mayor's team failed to read Katie's report past the opening mush, or maybe only read the mendacious headline which was far more misleading that the article itself. They then proceeded to construct a social media post based on a false premise and sounded really smug about it, which didn't do the Mayor's reputation any good at all. Just like this latest one hasn't.
There is no greatest city in the world, and to claim there is is idiotic. London is amazing but there's no need for exceptionalism because that route only leads to argument and discord.
I note that the Mayor's bio on social media is "Husband, father, and Mayor of the greatest city in the world." Interestingly this use of the word 'greatest' doesn't sound stupid - more like a belief than a fact. It's like how you're allowed to think Liverpool is the greatest football team in the world even if other people may vehemently disagree. It's only when you try proving that your football team is the greatest that your claim falls apart, because any argument you put forward inevitably has holes and can be endlessly unpicked.
Here Sadiq, I've fixed your graphic for you.
It should be enough to say that London is great, which it is.
