Why have the Tories given up on London?

Have you ever heard of Susan Hall? Until a month ago, I hadn’t. Now that she has been selected as the Conservative candidate for next year’s London mayoral election, her name might well stick – although I am going to write it down somewhere just in case. 

This isn’t to disparage her abilities. Hall has, apparently, been leader of the Conservative party group in the London Assembly for the past four years – I don’t live in London, which may explain my ignorance. Before being elected a councillor in Harrow she was a mechanic in the family garage business and has also worked as a hairdresser – so she ought to have a connection with ordinary people which is lacking in so many of today’s MPs, many of whom have never had a job outside politics. For all I know she might have what it takes to make an excellent mayor.

Yet her selection seems to break an unwritten rule of the London mayoralty election: that parties will pick, if not political celebrities, then someone who comes to the campaign with a high level of national recognition, or who at least seems a little larger than life. Since