At last, the Tories have produced their candidate for next year’s mayoral election. Susan Hall is the woman. She is not, even in London, a household name. She has undoubted local government experience, being until recently head of the City Hall Conservatives, but what is striking about this contest was the failure of the party to attract any candidate with discernible public recognition.
The Tories lag so far behind Labour in London that what was needed to disrupt Labour’s apparent stranglehold on power was an eye-catching candidate with sufficient experience to be credible; Susan Hall has the experience but to date lacks popular appeal. In the campaign anything might happen, of course. But this contest will be nothing like as interesting as, say, Boris Johnson’s campaign against Ken Livingstone: these were substantial, eloquent candidates with large personalities. And that is what London deserves.
