Tory London mayoral candidate Susan Hall stumped by most simple query on LBC
The Tory candidate to be London Mayor has admitted she would not know the value of a bus fare – simply days after criticising a choice to freeze fares within the capital.
Susan Hall was unable to reply the fundamental query in a painful LBC radio interview, the place she was grilled on points going through Londoners. Asked how a lot individuals must pay to get on a bus within the metropolis, she mentioned: “I don’t use them. I use trains all the time.” The astonished presenter, Nick Ferrari, mentioned: “You don’t know what a bus fare is?” Ms Hall responded merely: “No.”
It comes after she criticised Labour Mayor of London Sadiq Khan’s announcement on Friday of a funding increase of £123million to freeze Transport for London (TfL) fares till March 2025. The freeze will apply to pay-as-you-go fares for bus, Tube, DLR and tram journeys, and the vast majority of these fares for London Overground and Elizabeth line journeys. It means a bus fare will stay at £1.75.
Ms Hall, his Conservative opponent in May’s mayoral election, described the coverage as a “last roll of the dice”. “This fares freeze is Sadiq Khan’s last roll of the dice, because he knows that his eight years of failure will catch up with him this May,” she mentioned.
“After pleading poverty throughout his mayoralty, Sadiq Khan expects us to believe that he has miraculously conjured up this money, when the truth is we will be paying for it through increased council tax, his unfair Ulez expansion and a new tax that will charge you for every mile you drive.” A spokesman for Mr Kahn hit again: “Pay per mile charging has been ruled out by the mayor and no such scheme is on the table.”
Pressed on LBC whether or not she would reverse the fare freeze, Ms Hall mentioned: “I don’t know. Let’s wait and see what the finances are… Nick, Sadiq Khan has been screaming that he hasn’t got enough money for the last seven years… I suspect it would stay in place. I wonder where the money has come from. Don’t forget, he has spent seven years saying he’s got no money. He’s been underfunded. And yet suddenly he’s got money to do a fare freeze. Oh, guess why? There’s an election coming.
“He’ll discover different monies for all kinds of different issues. And it is as a result of there’s an election coming. But within the final seven years, he is been depriving numerous very important companies from cash – and I might recommend positively the police – so that he can have a bumper 12 months now simply earlier than an election and purchase the votes, fairly frankly.”
Conservative politicians previously criticised Mr Khan for freezing fares for the first four years after he was elected in May 2016, claiming this damaged TfL’s finances and contributed to the transport body being reliant on Government bailouts following the start of the coronavirus pandemic. Mr Khan has insisted the need for funding was caused by the collapse in revenue from the drop in passenger numbers due to the virus crisis.
City Hall said an example of the benefits of the freeze include someone commuting from Hornchurch to a central London station five days a week avoiding a potential 20p increase to their fare, saving up to £90 a year.
The car crash LBC interview also saw Ms Hall unable to say who owns London’s Hammersmith Bridge, which has been closed to vehicles for almost five years. It was revealed last week the cost of repairing the bridge have nearly doubled from initial estimates. Ms Hall was criticised by an LBC caller after saying “it is not very clear” who owns the bridge.
She said: “Well it is between the 2 councils apparently. It’s not very clear however on the finish of the day the Mayor is accountable for London and if issues will not be working they must step in.” A member of the public who phoned in hit back: “Well I’m a bit disenchanted by this response as a result of it reveals a fundamental factual misunderstanding of the case. The bridge would not belong to 2 councils. It solely belongs to 1 council, which is Hammersmith and Fulham.”
