Mozammel ‘Moz’ Hossain KC is one of two people running to be the Conservative party candidate in the London mayoral election in 2024.
If chosen by party members over his competitor, Susan Hall, Mr Hossain will go up against Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, who is running for an historic third term in office.
What’s Moz Hossain’s story?
Born in the village of Barisal, Bangladesh, Mr Hossain says he grew up in a wooden hut, with a mud floor and tin roof. He did not own a pair of shoes until he was 16.
At the age of 21, he moved to the UK and studied law in Liverpool for four years, before coming to London in 1999.
Ten years later, Mr Hossain became a British citizen, which he said was one of his “proudest moments”.
Another decade later, in 2019, he became the first Bangladeshi-born criminal barrister ever to be appointed a Queen’s Counsel.
Mr Hossain practises at 187 Chambers, the website of which says he “has been involved in some of the most complex and high-profile cases in the country”.
What are his policies?
As a criminal barrister, Mr Hossain has focused much of his policy offering on crime - though he has also emphasised his plan to scrap Mr Khan’s London-wide Ulez expansion, which is due to come into force on August 29 this year.
If elected, he has said he would “cut the head off” gangs to tackle knife crime and phone robberies. He has said he will establish a “Targeted Termination Team” within the Met Police, with the sole purpose of hunting and arresting gang leaders.
He has also pledged to increase “intelligence-based stop and search”, as well as boosting police visibility in London, placing CCTV at every bus stop and ensuring every street in the capital is “brightly lit” at night.
On Ulez, he said he will switch off the enforcement cameras in outer London “on day one” of his mayoralty. He argues that expanding the Ulez - which imposes a £12.50 daily charge on non-compliant vehicles - to cover the whole of Greater London is “immeasurably cruel” during a cost of living crisis.
Mr Hossain has also talked about making homes more affordable and improving transport connectivity.
Could he defeat Sadiq Khan?
According to James Johnson, a former Downing Street pollster who worked under Theresa May, “the Tories’ best bet [in the 2024 mayoral election] is the outside choice”.
I was born in a wooden house with a mud floor and a tin roof. I came to England aged 21 to study law.
— Moz Hossain KC (@MozForMayor) June 14, 2023
I didn’t own shoes until I was 16 – but I became Bangladesh’s first criminal barrister, and now KC.
I'm the candidate who will defeat Sadiq Khan. pic.twitter.com/GeJ28ns92a
Mr Johnson describes Mr Hossain as the “ultimate outsider”, given his backstory, and says that members “need to gamble to win London’s mayoralty”.
Polling by Mr Johnson’s JL Partners firm showed that Mr Hossain’s background – when presented blindly alongside that of Daniel Korski (who has since withdrawn from the race) and Ms Hall – was the top choice at 41 per cent, compared with 21 per cent and 18 per cent for the other two.
Ms Hall’s supporters point out however that Mr Hossain has never held elected office before, and is untested in that respect.
His campaign has also been hit by scandal, as members of his campaign team can be seen in the recently-published ‘partygate video’, filmed in December 2020 while London was under Tier 2 Covid restrictions, which banned indoor socialising. If Mr Hossain is selected as the Conservative candidate, the video is likely to be used against him by Mr Khan.
