The longlist of seven was: Hall, Korski, Mozammel, Scully, Andrew Boff, Natalie Campbell and Christian May.

Tory mayoral candidate shortlist of three: Susan Hall, Daniel Korski and previously unknown Mozammel Hossain KC. Scully may well have decided he missed out on a hospital pass…

UPDATE:  CCHQ confirm

Hustings will take place from 12^th June to 3^rd July, with members able to put their questions to the candidates.

 Members will then vote for their preferred candidate between the 4^th and 18^th July. 

 The successful final candidate will then be announced on 19^th July, with the chosen individual having 10 months to campaign before the election in May 2024.

Nominations for the Tories’ candidate for London Mayor closed at 0900 sharp this morning, with CCHQ expected to “sift” the applicants and slim the field down by this Friday. A final shortlist of two or three candidates will be decided on June 4^th. Hustings will take place from June 12^th to July 3^rd, before voting opens to members from July 4^th to July 18^th. The final candidate will be confirmed on the 19^th…

Here are the nine who have publicly declared an interest:

• Paul Scully – Minister for London and Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy
• Susan Hall – Former Leader of the London Conservatives
• Andrew Boff – Chair of the London Assembly
• Samuel Kasumu – Former Special Advisor to Boris Johnson
• Daniel Korski – Deputy Head of the Number 10 Policy Unit under David Cameron
• Natalie Campbell – Co-chief of ethical bottled-water business Belu, former Royal aide
• Alex Challoner – Founder of Cavendish Communications and former adviser to the Tories in the 1990s
• Duwayne Brooks – Former LibDem councillor, joined the Tories in 2018. Longlisted for London Mayor in 2020
• Natasha Asghar – Conservative Regional Member of the Welsh Parliament. Shadow Minister for Transport and Technology

Kit Malthouse has reportedly decided not to stand…

With the London mayoral election now less than a year away (!), second rate Tory hopefuls have started jockeying for position to take on incumbent Sadiq Khan. Guido presents an exhausted racecard.

Out of the gates in a flash, early frontrunner Samuel Kasumu was chomping at the bit to declare his candidacy and has claimed some thoroughbred backers, including Priti Patel, Grant Shapps and Steve Baker. As the former advisor to Boris Johnson nails his colours to the YIMBY mast:

“The Tories are in danger of turning our back on Thatcher’s legacy and our Party’s homeownership principles. It is vital for our future that we continue efforts to get more homes built.”

Time will tell if Kasumu has the stamina.

Next in line to the throne, Susan Hall, optimistically put her name forward to deliver the self-declared “common sense” pitch. Hall is a tough on crime trope, with a pledge to form a new Met Police unit focused on burglars, muggers and thieves. Susan wistfully reflected: 

“Not too long ago, London was a safer, happier and more tolerant city. It can be that again. If I am your candidate, we will get there.”

London’s silent majority?

Outside bet Nick Rogers is sculpting a ‘cool’ campaign that promises to “stand up for millennial Londoners”. The Conservative’s spokesman for transport in City Hall has promised a “manifesto for renters” and to axe ULEZ expansion. Former special constable Rogers has adopted the mantra: 

“Who better to stand up for millennial Londoners than a millennial Londoner?”

It’s bold, you’ve got to give it that.

‘Boff for London’ left the paddock and joined the pack today. Andrew Boff, London Assembly member since 2008 and former leader of the City Hall Conservatives, is running on a bumper manifesto to make London safer, scrap ULEZ expansion, restore local policing and build homes. Boffin, who ran his own IT support company, eloquently wrote:

“My promise to every London Conservative if they select me is to bring all levels of our Party together in my campaign, so we not only defeat Sadiq Khan but reconnect with people and communities across the capital, winning their trust and keeping it.”

Nawww… anyway, who’s next?

After teasing that he was “considering” and then “still considering” running, Paul Scully has put us out of our misery and entered the gladiatorial arena that is the Tory London Mayor race. The Minister for London is tipped as a favourite with odds sure to shorten at the bookies and is understood to be running on a ticket of housing, scrapping ULEZ expansion, and Met Police bolstering. Bingo!

One time No. 10 aide Daniel Korski is thought to be planning a bid, while Kit Malthouse has refused to deny a potential mayoral challenge. Other names floating around are Shaun Bailey, Justine Greening and Rob Rinder. 

Applications close May 24 when the list will be trimmed to 8 before being cut further by a committee to 2 or 3 candidates on 4 June. Voting then opens between 4 July and 18 July. First past the post!

UPDATE: Friend of Stephen Lawrence and former councillor, Duwayne Brooks has been in touch to say he is also in the running. Again.

UPDATE II: Dan Korski will formally launch his campaign at 9am on Tuesday, 16^th May.

Sadiq Khan yesterday re-heated his counter-productive campaign for rent-controls in London. His policy announcements and broadcast rounds conveniently took the media spotlight just as new GLA figures highlighted the Mayor’s failure to meet his homebuilding targets.

The figures show Sadiq has started work on just 2,415 new affordable homes. He promised to build 116,000. To give him some credit, this was up from the astonishingly meagre 764 starts in the previous quarter. If the Mayor was to meet his own targets, he would need to start 21,821 homes in the next six months. One can only hope…

To make matters worse, Khan has been given £5 billion in public funding to deliver on his promises. Instead of trying to give taxpayers some value for money, he’s convening emergency rent summits and parroting the same policy platforms that have failed wherever they’ve been tried. If only there were an easy way to increase housing supply. 

Andrew Boff, the GLA Conservatives housing spokesman, said:

“Rent controls would wreck the market, causing a mass shortage of homes. The only way to solve this crisis is to build more homes, and yet Sadiq Khan is failing to spend the billions he received from the government and has fallen far behind on his house building targets. What Londoners need from this Mayor is not more meetings, but more action.”

A Labour politician failing to spend taxpayer money, now there’s a first…