Susan Hall is the low profile Conservative London Assembly member battling for one of the most prominent jobs in the UK: mayor of the capital.
Though Hall was previously little known and London is commonly viewed as a Labour city, a poll this month suggested she may be within a whisker of victory in next year’s May mayoral election.
The 68-year-old staunch rightwinger, who previously led Harrow council, conceded in an interview with the Financial Times that she is “definitely not known” among the electorate yet.
But she said she was undaunted by the flood of early campaign controversies about social media posts from her years of admittedly “trigger happy” use of X, formerly Twitter.
“I’m sure there’ll be more somewhere,” she said. “I won’t be deterred. They can throw whatever grenades they want at me.”
Hall was chosen as the Tories’ candidate in unusual circumstances in July, when one of her rivals for the job of challenging Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan dropped out after being accused of groping. The contested claim cleared a path for Hall to enter the spotlight.
The little name recognition she has secured to date has not all been favourable. In recent weeks Hall has elicited a string of negative headlines about contentious remarks she has made about London’s black community and her past activity online.
This included “liking” posts that called Khan a “traitor rat”, made the baseless claim that he supported electoral fraud, made fun of his height and employed the Islamophobic trope “Londonistan”.
Having curbed her use of social media on the advice of her aides and in pursuit of the “very serious job” at City Hall, she is now ratcheting up her campaign and starting to set out her stall.
Tackling crime is at the heart of her election bid, taglined “Safer with Susan”, with a particular focus on violent gang activity in the West End, which Hall said could threaten London’s ability to attract tourists.
Hall said she would “get more money into policing, get more frontline officers out there on the streets” if she became mayor. Ousting “rogue officers” from the Metropolitan Police is another priority, as 1,600 officers and staff face investigation over alleged abuse against women.
Though Hall is adamant the police should focus on curbing and solving crime, she also declared she would ban officers overtly supporting LGBT campaigns by wearing rainbow flag badges, or engaging in anti-racism gestures. “No rainbows, no knee-taking,” she said.
A former beauty salon and hairdresser owner, she wants to help the capital’s businesses — big and small — and is currently in “listening mode” to better understand their demands.
Like other Conservatives, she is also positioning herself as being on the side of motorists. Hall signalled she would review some of the 20mph speed limit zones that have proliferated across the capital.
“People are being fined left, right and centre” for speeding, she said, adding: “That’s no way to run a city. We need a moving city.”
Hall remains a staunch opponent of Khan’s expansion in August of the ultra-low emissions zone, which imposes a £12.50 charge on highly polluting vehicles, and has vowed to reverse it.
It was the Tories’ robust campaign against the Ulez expansion that precipitated the party’s shock triumph in Uxbridge by-election in July and has fortified hopes that Hall could capitalise on the issue to win City Hall.
It is one of a number of areas in which Khan is facing pressure as he campaigns for an unprecedented third term in office. A survey by Redfield & Wilton Strategies this month put Hall on 32 per cent, just 1 point behind Khan, and bolstered morale inside her campaign.
Conservative officials also anticipate the move in London to the “first past the post” model used for UK general elections may aid their prospects by splitting liberal and left votes. Under the previous system, voters could indicate a preference for more than one candidate.
But few party figures enthusiastically cheered Hall’s selection as the Tory candidate in July, which followed outcry about an impoverished choice of nominees and a rival dropping out of the contest in the wake of a groping allegation, which he denied.
Some Tory insiders believe they were right to be wary as controversies have engulfed Hall, including a furious backlash to remarks she made last year about “problems with crime within the black community”.
She insisted she had been referring to black people being more likely to be victims of certain violent crimes, telling the FT: “If you are black, you are four times more likely to get stabbed — you can’t ignore that . . . If people say ‘ oh don’t mention it’, nothing’s going to change.”
On her contentious social media use, which was identified by the campaign group Hope not Hate, Hall said she would no longer endorse “personal” attacks on Khan. She said she did not know “Londonistan” was a pejorative term that implied too many Muslims live in the capital when she had liked the post using the phrase.
“If I’ve offended anybody of course I apologise,” she said, but added: “Too many people do take offence when they actually even know it wasn’t meant.”
Hall said she was proud of her tough skin. “Women in politics, my love, have to be very tough,” she said. Harking back to her first job, working in a garage owned by her late father, she said: “I’ve always been in a man’s world — always. I think to an extent politics is — it’s hard.”
She insisted that projecting a sense of personality is important in the London mayoral race, a contest won in the past by larger-than-life characters such as Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone, but admitted she splits opinion: “I am marmite.”
