Susan Hall

Hall stood unsuccessfully at the 2002 election to be a councillor on Harrow London Borough Council for the ward of Headstone South.[4] She stood again at the 2006 election for the ward of Hatch End and was successfully elected.[5] In 2007, she was appointed to Harrow Council's cabinet, responsible for the environment and community safety. She was re-elected as a councillor at subsequent elections in 2010, 2014, 2018 and 2022.

Hall became deputy leader of the Conservative group on Harrow Council in 2008. She was then elected in 2010 as leader of the group and therefore leader of the opposition on Harrow Council. She was appointed to the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority as a borough nominee in June 2010.[6] She took over as leader of Harrow's hung council in September 2013,[7][8] before returning as opposition leader after the May 2014 election.[9][10]

In 2014, she tweeted that TOWIE star Gemma Collins, in a short appearance on ITV's I'm a Celebrity...Get Me Out of Here, was fat and ghastly.[11] She also called Collins, via Twitter, a "stupid fat blonde woman".[11] When asked about this tweet by ITV News, Hall said "I meant it and would say it to her face". She said that she was a victim of a campaign by the Fire Brigades Union and that "it was a sad state of affairs when a person doesn't have the luxury of being able to say what they think because of political correctness or fear of trial by Twitter jury".[12] Hall maintains that Twitter is her hobby.[2][13]

Hall was selected to stand as the fourth London-wide candidate on the Conservative Party list at the 2016 London Assembly election.[14] She was unsuccessful, with three candidates elected from the Conservative Party list.[15]

In 2017 Kemi Badenoch AM said she would resign her assembly seat if she were elected as MP for Saffron Walden at the 2017 general election.[16] Badenoch was elected as an MP and Hall, as next on the list, became a Member of the London Assembly in June 2017.[17] She became a London Assembly nominee on the London Fire and Emergency Planning Authority.[18]

Hall was elected deputy leader of the London Conservatives in 2018,[19] before succeeding Gareth Bacon as leader of the Conservatives on the London Assembly,[20] after his election to the House of Commons as MP for Orpington in the December 2019 general election.

In March 2020, in response to the COVID-19 pandemic in London, Hall wrote a letter to Mayor Sadiq Khan, asking him to "call in the police" to "enforce the coronavirus lockdown" in order to protect National Health Service workers.[21]

She supported Donald Trump ahead of the 2020 U.S. presidential election, tweeting "Come on Donald Trump - make sure you win and wipe the smile off this man's face", referring to Sadiq Khan, who is a vocal critic of Trump.[22] Following the storming of the United States Capitol by Trump's supporters in January 2021, Hall compared the cause of the riot with opposition to Brexit in the UK.[23]

Re-elected in the 2021 London Assembly election,[24] Hall stood down as leader of the London Conservatives in May 2023.[25]

Hall was selected, on 19 July 2023, as the Conservative Party candidate for the 2024 London mayoral election.[26][27][28] On 19 July 2023 the Conservative Party deputy chairman Nickie Aiken MP accused the Evening Standard of "misogyny" with their choice of photo of Hall for their front page. In a letter to the Evening Standard's editor Dylan Jones, Aiken said "Your choice of photo of Susan Hall is a clear mockery, and it is contemptible - especially as the first female candidate for London Mayor from either of the two main parties".[29]

In August 2023 a letter criticising Hall, written by Dawn Butler MP and co-signed by nine other London Labour MPs, was sent to Conservative Party chairman Greg Hands concerning Hall's comments on the Notting Hill Carnival.[30] Hall had called the carnival "dangerous" and said that it put local residents through "hell". In the letter Butler wrote "your mayoral candidate seems convinced of the innate criminality of Black people and has repeatedly implied that our community has a propensity towards violence and disorder, saying that Black people have a "problem with crime". Butler asked Hands to "require that Susan Hall withdraws her comments and issues a public apology to Londoners".[30] Hall's team, writing on her behalf, said that the allegations in the letter were "desperate smears and a complete mischaracterisation" of comments she had made about the carnival.[31] A spokesperson for Hall said she made “no apology for condemning violence at public events and demonstrations” and that she was proud to celebrate London's diverse communities.[32]

In September 2023 Hall was reported to have liked a tweet that praised Enoch Powell and liked a tweet that described London's mayor Sadiq Khan as "our nipple height mayor of Londonistan". When asked about the tweets, a spokesman for Hall's campaign to be London mayor said, "Susan engages with many people on Twitter without endorsing their views".[33]

In October 2023 Hall received criticism from political opponents and Jewish groups for saying "I know how frightened some of the [Jewish] community is because of the divisive attitude of Sadiq Khan".[34] Nusrat Ghani, the Conservative Minister of State for Industry, criticised Hall for using the "language of fear and demeaning our political opponents". Hall said her comments were "misinterpreted".[35]