Three finalists have been chosen to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London.
Congratulations to Dan Korski, Susan Hall, and Mozammel Hossain who go forward to a ballot among all Conservative Party members in London.
There will now be a six-week campaign with plenty of hustings, interviews, and debates in the media and among the Party membership.
The upset is that Paul Scully, the Minister for London and the MP for Sutton and Cheam, did not make the cut. I had described him as “probably the front-runner” – which is traditionally enough to extinguish any candidate’s hope.
But there will be some dismay that he has been excluded – not just among his supporters but among undecided Party members who would have liked the chance to have heard more from him. Supporters of Andrew Boff and Samuel Kasumu will also be disappointed to see them excluded.
Daniel Korski is a technology entrepreneur and was the Deputy Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under David Cameron. Read his comment pieces for us here. He has proposed a Tourism Tax in an interview for the Evening Standard.
Susan Hall was, until recently, the Leader of the Conservative Group in the London Assembly. Running with the slogan “Safer with Susan”. Read her pieces for us here. She also set out her stall in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday.
Mozammel Hossain is the least well-known. Did it cross the selectors’ mind, when interviewing him, that his inclusion might be a useful counter to charges from the Left of Conservative anti-Muslim prejudice?
He is a KC. Michael Mansfield says of him:
“He is a rarity at the current Bar; someone with an inimitable style, good humour and charm. And best of all passion. In all of these aspects, he stands well above the rest.”
Not sure how useful that endorsement will be…