OH, TO BE IN ENGLAND: Crime has got so bad in Britain that foreign governments are warning their citizens about visiting.

Before Samuel* travelled from Australia to the UK last October, his friends and family warned him about London’s reputation for crime. “I had planned to travel all around Europe,” says the 27-year-old architecture student from Sydney, “but my parents said, ‘once you get to London, you need to be really careful’”.

Conversations about the soaring robbery and theft rates in London are commonplace for Australian travellers visiting the UK, says Samuel. “Everyone knows of somebody [in Australia] that’s had their phone stolen in London,” he says. “It’s definitely common to hear the warnings in Australia, everyone knows that.”

Despite the warnings, Samuel became one of around 80,000 people whose phones were stolen in London last year.

On the flip-side, it was likely a good Samaritan trying to save Samuel from a lengthy prison sentence for writing a spicy tweet: Lucy Connolly is in prison because of her politics.