‘I love a fight. I was going to say debate, but it’s more of a fight to be honest.’ Susan Hall is looking forward to taking on Sadiq Khan at the London mayoral hustings. When we meet for her first interview after securing the Conservative nomination, it is five days after the Uxbridge by-election. Hall is buoyed by an unexpected Tory triumph, thanks to discontent with Khan’s plans to extend the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez). ‘Out on the doorstep,’ she tells me: ‘I thought the questions would be all around Boris but I had nothing. It was all around the Ulez expansion.’ She hopes to replicate a similar result next May.
‘There aren’t really many policies. I won’t promise anything unless I know where the money is coming from’
‘Fight’ is one of Hall’s favoured words: she uses it 14 times in less than an hour. It explains how she went from being a 100/1 outsider to becoming the first woman nominated for the mayoralty by a major party.
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