Susan Hall Is An Idiot

The Tories, it might be thought, would like to do well in, perhaps even win, next year’s Mayoral election in London. They have, after all, rewritten the rules to impose First Past The Post on an electorate without consulting it first, so none of that Second Preference rubbish putting Labour incumbent Sadiq Khan back in City Hall. But to do well, they need a credible candidate.

Susan Hall AM

Last time, Shaun Bailey had been written off by many, but still managed a respectable 44.8% of the final vote tally. So who would follow that? What would a sensible party selection be? What would a pragmatic and competent party have done? What would Nietzsche have done? Sadly for The Blue Team, they chose Assembly Member Susan Hall. Who she?

Ms Hall apparently had problems seeing through Combover Crybaby Donald Trump. Nor did she figure out that Whinging Dan Hodges was not always right - about anything. So when Desperate Dan sniffed “How many people are sitting in Michigan saying ‘I was going to vote Trump. But Prince Harry doesn’t like him. So now I’m voting Biden’” she added “The exact opposite I would imagine. I think Trump will win”. Trump lost. And lost Michigan, too.

On she ploughed. “And people will wonder how Trump won” … “and Democrat’s [sic] will wonder why if/when Trump wins”. Trump still lost. Come the election, she was holding fast: “In Washington beginning to look like crowds might get ugly. Doubt that Trump doing well will be accepted easily”.

But her belief in Trump was as nothing when compared to her backing for disgraced former occasional Mayor of London Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. “Good for Boris supporting both Conservative and Labour Hillingdon Councillors against the expansion of ULEZ Sadiq Khan mustn’t do this it will make life so difficult for poorer Londoners” she told last November.

Her problem was, not for the last time, missing the obvious: Bozo was the one who started the ULEZ business in the first place, as well as becoming a stinking hypocrite when he thought it might make him look good. But at first, her poll ratings seemed to put her within reach of matching Khan’s.

Sadly, though, after ULEZ was expanded, and drivers realised that the scare stories about who would be charged to enter it were mostly untrue, those ratings changed. First it was Khan on 50% and Ms Hall on 25%, which was bad enough, and enough to get the incumbent over the line, whatever voting system was used, and however the vote split. More recently a poll has shown Sadiq Khan still on 50%, but Ms Hall down at a mere 23%.

And so it came to pass that Ms Hall’s campaign tried an attention-grabbing stunt: their candidate had been pickpocketed on the Tube! See, Sadiq’s letting crime skyrocket out of control! It’s all his fault! Sadly, two things then happened. One, her money and cards were returned to her, which means it must have been a lousy pickpocket. Or they just fell out of hers.

Also, Two, it was pointed out to her that the Tube, being one of those railway thingies, was the domain of the British Transport Police, not the Met. So crime on its premises and trains were not down to the Mayor. Perhaps she should be haranguing the Secretary of State for Transport, but, oh hang on a minute, that would be Mark Harper, and he’s in, er, the same party as her.

So did that sink in? Did it buggery. The result of It Not Sinking In was that, yesterday, Ms Hall announced “Tube crime has skyrocketed by 56% in the last year under Sadiq Khan. We must restore confidence in our public transport by making it safer. I will conduct a full review of TfL to ensure it delivers”. Sadiq Khan is still not responsible for the BTP.

Dave Hill of the excellent On London website delivered some context. “Reported Tube crime has ‘skyrocketed’ from 13.7 to 18.6 reported offences per *one million* passenger journeys. Misleading & scaremongering”. Ms Hall’s remaining supporters will no doubt go through the motions, but come the Mayoral Election, she’s going to be toast. And deservedly so.

Next year, Susan Hall will meet reality, and lose. Just rejoice at that news.

Enjoy your visit to Zelo Street? You can help this truly independent blog carry on talking truth to power, while retaining its sense of humour, by becoming a Patron on Patreon at

https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton