In an LBC studio, Iain Dale has invited the final shortlist for the Conservative party’s mayor of London candidate, Susan Hall and Mozammel “Moz” Hossain, to question each other.
Moz: “Do you think Londoners will vote for somebody who writes intolerant, hateful Twitter, Susan?”
Susan: “Yeah! Do you honestly think people are going to mind about two or three tweets that I’ve done years ago – oh, you haven’t even had Twitter.”
Moz (piously): “Because I’ve worked, I’ve given my life, yeah, to public service for 21 years. I worked.”
Susan: “We’ve all worked. (Pointedly) Londoners work.”
Given the startling state of blue-on-blue bickering it’s broadcasting’s loss that the LBC husting was among the last before London party members decide which candidate will challenge the current mayor, Labour’s Sadiq Khan. An earlier favourite, Daniel Korski, dropped out after breast-groping allegations, which he denied.
So, Susan or Moz? The Boris-, Brexit- and Truss-supporting veteran running unironically as “Safer with Susan”, or the unknown outsider his supporters are currently depicting as “mysterious”, as opposed to opportunistic and clueless? Last week, urged to be realistic about his housebuilding fantasies, Moz complained: “People are obsessed with figures.”
It might be simplest for the still undecided to toss a coin. What might seem matchless voter-repelling capacity in one merely takes a different form in the other. Both oppose Ulez expansion. As for differences in local knowhow, neither London expert, it emerged, was entirely sure about the population. Was it, Susan, the professional Londoner, hazarded, in answer to Dale, “between nine and 10 million”? Moz: “Same, closer to nine.” The last census made it 8,799, 800.
Khan, now understandably unable to conceal a certain complacency about his claim on, at least, a third term (there is no statutory limit), has said he’d prefer to run against Hall, formerly leader of the Conservatives in the London Assembly. But having watched the candidates, I suspect he’d do as well, maybe better against Hossain, a successful but oddly evasive barrister whose bid, with little else to recommend it, returns relentlessly to “my backstory”. On the Four Yorkshiremen scale, it admittedly amounts to a comprehensive challenge to Khan’s luxurious “son of a bus driver” narrative. Until 16, in Bangladesh, Hossain had no shoes. NB: Khan had shoes. And now look: a London KC with plenty of shoes (if selected, perhaps he will put a figure on it). Classic Dick Whittington once you’ve replaced the black cat with property developer and Moz backer Nick Candy, and the Bow bells with campaign staff who – like Candy – attended the infamous “mingle and jingle” lockdown party. Hossain, with an air of long experience in absolution, counsels mercy: “They are very remorseful.”
It was said of David Frost that he rose without trace. Hossain has not so much risen as materialised, for no discernible purpose other than to make Londoners speculate, once again, on what it is about the mayor’s job that repeatedly attracts wildly unprepossessing or inadequate candidates. The restricted powers with the consolation of limitless self-promotion?
In the first contest, Jeffrey Archer was welcome until an ex-friend exposed his perjury. He was replaced by Steven “Shagger” Norris. High among Khan’s appreciated attributes have been that, along with being hated by Donald Trump, he was a blessing after Johnson and a hero compared with Zac Goldsmith. But who, generally speaking, isn’t?
Fully acknowledging Khan’s achievements in air quality and social housing, it remains possible to imagine someone new doing more with the third mayoral term he’s due to inherit, with tireless help from the Tories, from himself. All the more so, for non-violent Londoners, after Khan failed to condemn misogynistic incitement by a lead speaker who urged a cheering crowd in Westminster: “If you see a Terf, punch them in the fucking face.” Though Khan may yet explain, before the 2024 election, how that exhortation can be reconciled with his admirable “‘whole society’ approach to tackling violence against women and girls”. He recognises, to quote the #Have a Word campaign, that such violence “often starts with words”.
Maybe it’s out of respect for party tradition dating from Archer (who had lied about paying Monica Coghlan for sex), thereafter featuring Norris v the “monstrous regiment” and years during which Boris Johnson balanced mayoral duties with his commitments to Jennifer Arcuri (a regrettable disappearance of his emails precludes important learnings from this arrangement) that the Conservatives alighted, in Hall, on a woman whose oracy will never upset their menfolk.
In the event of her selection, of course, this could be less of an electoral plus. Cheerfully, Hall admits she once tweeted that a celebrity was a “stupid, fat blonde woman”: “Yes, I am inclined to say what I think.” “I nagged like only a female can,” she remarks of another achievement.
Those supporting her know that Trump’s advice on pussy-grabbing never diminished Hall’s regard. “Come on Donald Trump – make sure you win and wipe the smile of (sic) this man’s face,” she tweeted in 2020 (the “man” being Khan). As for Trump’s Capitol mob: Susan thought remainers who “campaigned to overturn democracy and the will of the British people” were in no position to judge.
Any London party members for whom Trumpian loyalty resembles an asset may want to weigh this against Hossain’s arguably closer connections: his supporter Nick Candy was a happy, post-Capitol visitor to Mar-a-Lago, alongside Nigel Farage.
Assuming their party is not, on some unconscious level, in love with Khan, or (at risk of a Springtime for Hitler-style miracle) overdoing a scheme to prevent the creation of a successor-Johnson, what explains Tory satisfaction with such a shortlist? Despair? Fatalism? Reasonable enough, but still careless reputationally, given the many months in which Susan/Moz hilariously presents themself, with a bigger election looming, as what London deserves: the Conservative party’s best shot at talent.
• Catherine Bennett is an Observer columnist
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