At a glance
• Former Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall suggested that some victims of hate crime should ‘toughen up’, arguing that police resources are limited and that people should develop more resilience to minor abuse
• Labour politicians and hate crime experts condemned her remarks as lacking empathy, warning that they trivialise the serious emotional and social impacts of hate crime
• The debate occurred amid ongoing concerns about hate crime on London’s public transport; Transport for London recorded 1,268 hate crimes in the first half of 2025
A row has broken out after Susan Hall, the former Tory mayoral candidate, suggested that some victims of hate crime needed to “toughen up”.
Labour accused Ms Hall of a “lack of empathy” and suggested she should apologise for her remarks, which were made during a City Hall question-and-answer session investigating the level of hate crime on London’s public transport network.
Ms Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives and a prominent critic of what she regards as “woke leftie” opinions, said repeated cuts to Metropolitan police funding meant officers were being forced to prioritise which incidents to investigate.
Last month the Met announced that it would no longer investigate “non-crime” hate incidents after comedian Graham Linehan was told he would face no further action over social media posts about transgender issues.
Addressing a panel of experts at a London Assembly police and crime committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Hall said: “We have got to face facts. The police are being funded less and less. They are not going to be able to look into some of these hate crimes.
“A bit controversially, I will ask: do you think that some of us need to toughen up a little bit?”
She added: “At the end of the day, many of us – I know I do – get abuse. I’m a Tory in London, and sometimes we get abuse. To me it’s water off a duck’s back – I ignore it, because you have to carry on.
“You can’t ignore real crime, and sometimes these [incidents] verge into that. But do you not think that we should start toughening up and just ignore it?”
She suggested teaching people “life skills” showing how to ignore some incidents – but made clear that this should not happen on every occasion.
She said greater sums of public money were being spent on victim support services – when her preference was to spend it on front-line policing.
“This might be a better way forward than constantly mollycoddling people,” she said. “People are awful to each other. Some of us have to get on with it.”
Marina Ahmad, Labour spokesperson for policing and crime on the London Assembly, said: “Many of us were shocked at Susan Hall’s lack of empathy.
“Suggesting we teach victims of hate crime to ‘toughen up’ and ‘ignore’ what’s happening disregards the real pain and fear that so many Londoners experience.
“As a child, I was told to ‘ignore’ the blatant racism I experienced. I know first-hand what it’s like to face hateful abuse and I’m glad that tackling hate crime is a priority today.
“All Londoners deserve to be heard, protected, and supported and not have their experiences dismissed. I know Susan’s comments caused real distress to people. After reflection, she may wish to apologise."
But Ms Hall told the Standard there was a need for a “common sense” approach – and an acceptance that the police had to prioritise incidents due to finite resources.
She said her remarks were not directed at people who were targeted by abusers because of their disabilities.
Ms Hall said on Thursday: “I stand by what I said. There are some cases where we need to be more resilient. Too often people take offence at something somebody has said, when no offence was meant whatsoever.”
However, her remarks provoked a backlash from some of the experts giving evidence to the assembly committee.
Andy Fearn, of Protection Approaches, an organisation that supports victims of “identity-based” violence, said: “I don’t agree that the answer is that people need to toughen up.
“We work day in and day out with victims of hate crime… as they try to access justice for their experience and wellbeing support.
“I can tell you, absolutely frankly and honestly, the impacts on people of experiencing hate – even what might be considered as low-level hate, such as verbal abuse in the street – are huge.
“We know for a fact that people who experience hate crime start to engage less with the community around them. They start to avoid places. They don’t use public transport. Some people want to move house or stop going to their work. People isolate.
“If you did a piece of work that understood the cost to London… after hate crime, it would be huge.”
Dr David Wilkin, a criminologist at the Open University, referred to the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington, who killed herself and her disabled daughter in a car fire in Leicestershire in 2012 after being hounded by yobs. He questioned whether this had happened “because they couldn’t toughen up”.
Dr Wilkin added: “Perhaps toughening up was the same advice that was given to me at seven years of age when I had very strange mannerisms because of my autism. I couldn’t toughen up and I tried to commit suicide when I was 12.
“Toughening up is a great message but it doesn’t apply to everybody. Nobody gives people the tools to toughen up. Part of that toughening up process is being believed and recognised by the authorities.”
There were 1,268 hate crimes reported in the six months to June 2025, according to Transport for London data – down 8.3 per cent on the previous period. However experts believe this is “only the tip of the iceberg” as many crimes are thought to go unreported.
London TravelWatch figures from 2023 show that 66 per cent of LGBTQ+ Londoners had been victimised on public transport in the past year, and 21 per cent had directly experienced hate crime while travelling.
