A row has broken out after Susan Hall, the former Tory mayoral candidate, suggested that some victims of hate crime needed to “toughen up”.Labour accused Ms Hall of a “lack of empathy” and suggested she should apologise for her remarks, which were made during a City Hall question-and-answer session investigating the level of hate crime on London’s public transport network.Ms Hall, leader of the City Hall Conservatives and a prominent critic of what she regards as “woke leftie” opinions, said repeated cuts to Metropolitan police funding meant officers were being forced to prioritise which incidents to investigate.Last month the Met announced that it would no longer investigate “non-crime” hate incidents after comedian Grahan Linehan was told he would face no further action over social media posts about transgender issues.Addressing a panel of experts at a London Assembly police and crime committee meeting on Wednesday afternoon, Ms Hall said: “We have got to face facts. The police are being funded less and less. They are not going to be able to look into some of these hate crimes.
