Susan Hall has been announced as the Conservative party candidate in the London mayoral election in 2024.
She was chosen over Moz Hossain and will go up against Labour mayor Sadiq Khan, who is running for an historic third term in office.
Following her win, she said: “Over the next 10 months I will expose Sadiq Khan for who he really is, and show London who we really are. It isn’t about fame or glory for me or for us.
“I’m not interested in the perks of the job – I am focused on the job itself. I want to sort things, not pass the buck.”
What’s Susan Hall’s story?
Describing herself as a “Londoner through and through”, Ms Hall started her professional life working in her father’s garage, where she had been taught how to strip down car engines.
After marrying a hairdresser, Ms Hall opened a salon with him, employing up to 20 people at one stage.
In 2006, she was elected as a Harrow borough councillor, and has represented Hatch End on the authority ever since. For a period in 2013-14, she was the council’s leader.
In 2017, she joined the London Assembly, where she regularly challenges Mr Khan during public meetings. From 2019 until earlier this year, she was leader of the Assembly’s Conservative group.
Ms Hall has said that she tends to say “exactly what I’m thinking” and that she would seek to “be more direct with Londoners” than Mr Khan.
She has called Twitter her “hobby” and has a sizable following of some 20,700 accounts on the social media platform.
What are her policies?
Ms Hall has said her “passion is policing”. She has pledged to invest £200m in the Met Police “to tackle the scourge of knives, modernise the police to use the latest artificial intelligence and facial recognition technology, and work to dismantle the gangs and organised crime networks that ruin so many lives”.
She has also said she will on “day one” scrap Mr Khan’s “disastrous” plan to expand the Ultra low emission zone (Ulez), meaning that outer London will not be covered by the zone following her election.
Ms Hall plans to abolish 20mph limits from the capital’s main roads, while retaining the limit in residential areas and around schools.
She has also pledged to “build a lot more homes in the right places” and says that she would move away from high rise tower blocks full of one and two-bedroom flats to “high density, low rise” family homes, promising residents their “own front door and patch of garden, even if it is just a postage stamp”.
Could she defeat Sadiq Khan?
Ms Hall’s supporters point out that unlike the other Tory candidates, Ms Hall has fought and won elections.
Sadiq Khan does not want me to be your candidate and this is why. You are #SaferWithSusan. pic.twitter.com/DcrOTQS70s
— Susan Hall AM (@Councillorsuzie) June 16, 2023
She has gathered years of experience at City Hall and says she is “the one Sadiq Khan fears”.
James Johnson, a former Downing Street pollster who worked under Theresa May, has however warned that Ms Hall “would be a fine candidate but she would be a dull one”.
He added: “She has said so herself, calling her campaign “Safer with Susan” and talking about the need for a “boring” person in City Hall.
“But the Conservatives cannot afford boring. Voters want radicalism, excitement, and a clear alternative to what they see as a failed mayor.”
