The minister for London, Paul Scully, has failed to make the shortlist to be the Conservative candidate to run for the city’s mayor. Scully had previously been seen as a possible frontrunner for next year’s electoral race against the Labour incumbent, Sadiq Khan.
The shadow health minister, Wes Streeting, said the Tories had avoided selecting Scully – the only MP on the longlist – because Rishi Sunak’s administration was “toxic” to voters.
When Scully announced his candidacy last month, he told reporters that he wanted to emulate Boris Johnson – who served as London mayor from 2008 to 2016 – and “reach out beyond any sense of core vote or tribal lines” if he was selected. Scully was seen as an ally of Johnson, who dramatically announced that he would quit as an MP on Friday night after he was told that a report had concluded he deliberately misled parliament over Partygate.
Streeting said: “There’s a very simple explanation for the Conservative party not shortlisting their minister for London to be their London mayoral candidate: their government is toxic. It’s not that they have no confidence in Paul Scully; it’s that they have no confidence in their own record.”
Scully, who was elected as MP for Sutton and Cheam in 2015 and has been minister for London since 2020, told the PA news agency he was “disappointed” by the decision but praised the “incredible” support his short-lived campaign had received.
Former Downing Street adviser Daniel Korski, London Assembly member Susan Hall and Mozammel Hossain KC made the shortlist, the Conservatives announced on Sunday. Hossain appeared not to have publicly announced his intention to run before being put through to the final three.
The hopefuls will take part in hustings from this month before Tory members are asked to vote on their preferred candidate. The winner is expected to be announced on 19 July.
The campaign of Korski, a businessman who was a special adviser to David Cameron, has been endorsed by the levelling up secretary, Michael Gove.
Korski said he was “delighted to have made it through to the next phase” of the selection process. “Our campaign is about rebuilding the London dream,” he tweeted.
Hall, a former leader of Harrow council, said she was “honoured” to have progressed. “I am the candidate Sadiq Khan fears the most, because I will expose him, defeat him and clean up the mess he has left behind,” she said.
Khan is vying for a historic third term in City Hall at the election, scheduled for May next year.
