City Of London Corporation Leader, Chris Hayward, Tries & Fails To Defend The Council’s Lack Of Democracy, Masonic Influence & Appeasement Of Repressive Regimes

At every full meeting of the City of London council, there is an agenda item for questions put by elected members to committee chairs. A member wishing to put a question must give advance written notice (unless it relates to a matter already on the agenda) and its length must not exceed 250 words. The total time for all questions, including supplementary ones of which notice need not be given, is limited to 40 minutes.

Many questions are put to the Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee (= Leader of the Council) Chris Hayward (mason), reflecting the status of this committee as the council’s governing body. Its power has over the last few years become concentrated in the hands of Hayward and a few other members of his clique as a result of their own efforts.

Those efforts are now backfiring, as demonstrated by a disastrous question session for Hayward at the meeting of the Court of Common Council (= City council) on 25/4/24, which can be watched here.

MAKING THE COUNCIL EVEN LESS DEMOCRATIC

The trouble began after Andrew McMurtrie asked Hayward the following question (at 36:57):

“Under our current standing orders, formal questions are allowed to take up to 40 minutes of this Honourable Court’s limited time. Will the Policy Chair agree that there is a need to review the standing orders relating to Court questions, including options on how this agenda item may be managed more efficiently within a shorter length of time?”

Hayward received this question warmly, replying (at 37:35):

“He [McMurtrie] says that questions take ‘up to’ 40 minutes of our time on this Honourable Court. I would say that they always take 40 minutes of this Court’s time! Whilst I think it’s important – very important I might add – for accountability that questions can be asked to the chairs of your committees, I am aware that a number of Honourable Members have queried whether these sessions are always as constructive as they could be, and if some questions would be better asked in a different forum.

What I mean by that is that in some cases questions may be better put at a committee or indeed direct to officers where a technical response is required. I think the Honourable Member’s question is an important reminder to us all on this Honourable Court that our standing orders need not remain static, that they can be reviewed through the proper process to improve the way that our Court of Common Council conducts its business.

And with that in mind, if it is the feeling of Honourable Members, I will ask our Town Clerk to commission a review of standing orders in this coming civic year to explore improving some of the ways in which Court meetings work, including questions, as well as some other areas that this Honourable Court has already flagged, such as committee nominations. Now whilst I’m conscious that this would signal yet another review, I am assured by officers that there are potential efficiencies to be gained in such a process, both for members and for officers, and so the endeavour, I think, would be a valuable one.”

Note how, after paying lip service to the need for “accountability”, Hayward launched into a series of insinuations calculated to undermine that concept and to support McMurtrie’s proposal to shorten the time allowed for questions. Hayward referred to “a number of Honourable Members” querying the current time limit, thus creating the impression that there was popular support for McMurtrie’s proposal, but he did not say how many or who they were. He used the words “constructive” and “efficiencies”, which sound good – since who could support anything that was not constructive and inefficient? -but those words take on a sinister meaning when applied to reducing the only opportunity members have to hold the leadership to account.

Hayward implied that there was a problem with members asking “technical” questions at full council meetings, but did not provide any evidence of this, nor could he, since none exists, as anyone can check for themselves by watching question sessions in the last couple of years. He said that “if it is the feeling of Honourable Members”, he would ask the Town Clerk to review standing orders with a view to making a change, but did not say how he would gauge members’  “feeling”. It became apparent when he replied to another question 13 minutes later that he didn’t intend to gauge their “feeling” at all, as he declared (at 51:22) that “I’ve already spoken to the Town Clerk’s department about this.”

McMurtrie’s proposal about limiting questions did not come out of the blue. Over the last couple of years, Hayward and other members of his clique like Shravan Joshi (mason), the Chair of Planning, have refused to take questions at committee meetings unless they have received advance written notice of them, although there is nothing in standing orders which requires notice to be given. A recent example is a meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee on 11/4/24 when Henry Colthurst, the Chair of Finance – who is not a mason and who is the only member holding high office not to belong to Hayward’s clique – raised his hand to ask a question (at 57:23), but received this bombastic and sarcastic response from Hayward:

“As you know, we have a timeline on submitting questions before the meeting [not to be found in any standing order], nobody’s put in any questions on these  …  I’ll wave back to you as well, Chairman of Finance [mockingly waving his hand], and so we’re therefore going to take these items for information…”  

Andrew McMurtrie, an “Honourable Member” pleasing the leadership of this “Honourable Court”.

The cosy atmosphere between Hayward and McMurtrie was shattered by Alder Martha Grekos when she asked Hayward the following supplementary question (at 41:10):

“In 2015, we had hardly any questions asked in this Court, but now in 2024 we see frequent questions. We can see today, for example, there are six on that paper [which is handed to members as they arrive], which really shows that members are getting very involved, and actually there is a desire for democracy to be able to use questions so as to be heard out loud and also to be able to hold the Corporation to account. Everyone hears the questions, like I said, and there is an opportunity for a supplementary and for further questions.

So my question to the Chairman is this: Isn’t the word ‘efficiency’ being used to undermine democracy if we are restricted already by word count, by providing questions in advance and now we are exploring not only to shorten the 40 minute window but also thinking of putting questions to different forums where we are not all sitting on, say, Policy and Resources, or to officers when they’re not in the public domain.”

Hayward, visibly rattled, replied (at 42:19):

“I thank the Alderwoman for her supplementary question. I think she’s rather missing the point, if I may say so, of what I said in my response. First of all, Honourable Members will know that I said that I regard questions and democratic accountability and holding chairs to democratic accountability as of fundamental importance to this Honourable Court.

I do not agree with her that the word ‘efficiency’ means that we should necessarily undermine democracy. And I have given her an assurance, and I have given this Honourable Court an assurance, that we will take into account all of the ideas and comments which Honourable Members have put forward. I haven’t said that we’re going to shorten, or recommend shortening, the time for questions at all. So I think if she had actually listened a little bit more to the answer that I gave to the questioner, she wouldn’t have needed to ask me the supplementary.”

By saying that Grekos had missed the point of his response and hadn’t properly listened to it, Hayward implied that she was stupid and/or disrespectful. In fact, she is a planning barrister with her own thriving practice and unfailingly courteous to everyone she meets. Hayward, by contrast, is proud to have spent 44 years in low level politics, and typically responds with rudeness and aggression when faced with questions he can’t answer, because he’s wrong.

Hayward was wrong again here: McMurtrie’s question focused solely on shortening the length of time for questions, and Hayward obviously supported that proposal in his reply, wrapped as it was in justificatory insinuations. Anyone can verify this simply by reading the words of the question and the reply. When faced with Grekos’ challenge to the anti-democratic nature of the proposal, Hayward couldn’t convincingly support his denial that “efficiency” undermined democracy, so he resorted to the grubby tactics of a low level politician: he tried to gaslight everyone into believing that she had misunderstood him, and was therefore wasting everyone’s time.

This is not the first time that Hayward has behaved abusively towards Grekos. Shortly after she resigned as a councillor in February 2023 and before she returned in the senior position of alder in July 2023, he took the opportunity at a council meeting behind closed doors to chuckle that she was “sadly no longer with us”, and in a spurt of premature exaltation gave her a verbal kicking, declaring that her questions in council meetings were a “real waste of time” and “just not fair”. It was notable that all the other members who joined his verbal abuse around that time were masons: Michael Synder, Simon Duckworth and Shravan Joshi. How much more pleasant they must find the Lodge, where their proceedings aren’t disturbed by a bright woman who doesn’t know her place.

Another bright woman who doesn’t know her place is Marianne Fredericks, who asked Hayward a supplementary question (at 43:26), in which she stated that many members would – as Grekos had pointed out – appreciate more opportunities to ask questions and scrutinise. She referred to standing orders which restricted members’ ability to debate, one of which had been used at the Planning Applications Sub-Committee on 17/4/24 to prevent members of that committee from debating the application for London Wall West. “When the public see the democratic process suspended in this way, they view it as democracy denied, and the City of London Corporation’s reputation is further damaged.” She asked whether in the review of standing orders Hayward would seriously consider removing the ones which could be used in this way.

He evaded that question by saying (at 45:04) that the review would “look at all aspects of our .. democratic accountability”, then proceeded to distract attention from the question by saying:

“I happen to believe, having been an elected politician for 44 years now, that this is actually one of the most democratic institutions, because the vast majority of us sit as independents. We are not bound by a political party whip. We have no cabinet system.

We have a committee system because that is the most democratic way we can have of actually ensuring all members’ views are heard. In addition we make provision for two informal Court of Common Council meetings which are all about questions and accountability. We have more committees probably than any local authority in the country. You know, I don’t accept this charge that we’re undemocratic, and I will not comment upon an individual planning application because it would be inappropriate for me to do so.”

His claim that the vast majority of members sit as independents and are not bound by a party political whip masks the fact that most members are effectively subject to the whip of his ruling clique, since any of them who does not conform is politically undermined, socially ostracised and briefed against at their next election. It is ironic that he talked about “ensuring all members’ views are heard” in the course of a discussion about hearing less of them in future question sessions of council meetings. He did not mention that the two informal council meetings to which he referred are held behind closed doors, so there is no accountability to the public. Having more committees than any other local authority is not a virtue when power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of his clique.

By declaring that “I will not comment upon an individual planning application because it would be inappropriate for me to do so” he implied that Fredericks had asked him to do this, and because it was “inappropriate”, she must be stupid and/or inclined to impropriety. This is another example of his gaslighting: she did not ask him to comment on the application at all, and merely mentioned it as a recent example of debate being prevented by use of the relevant standing orders.

His attempt to distract listeners’ attention from Fredericks’ question failed when she spoke again (at 46:04) to repeat her proposal that these standing orders be removed, especially for the sake of public perception.

Hayward tried (at 46:44) to rebut her proposal by claiming that matters were in the hands of a majority of members. So when a member moved to proceed directly to a vote “it is not for that member to make that decision: it is for a majority of the Court to make that decision. What, I ask you, could be more democratic than that?”

The answer is: a lot. There is nothing remotely democratic about so many members being elected by disengaged business voters and in a number of wards only in double digits. In some wards, a single dominant company has the power to swing the vote – the “pocket borough” scenario that existed nationally before the Reform Act of 1832, and still exists in this anachronistic local authority.

Michael Hudson (mason) (scroll down the link) tried to help his fellow mason and leader Hayward by asserting (at 47:38) that members asked questions either to get an answer that had eluded them by first asking officers or for the sake of “grandstanding”. The latter jibe was aimed at Grekos, the alder of his ward of Castle Baynard, and maybe at Fredericks too. Hudson is so wrapped up in his masonic world of unity, hierarchy and secrecy that he feels the need to smear members who publicly disagree with the leadership, and they are usually women.

Hudson was knocked out of the council in the elections in March 2022, when he polled the least number of votes in his ward and Grekos polled the most. After she stood down as a councillor and before she became an alder, Hudson was re-elected in a comical situation in which all four candidates were masons. Word on the street is that Hudson faces electoral oblivion again in March 2025.

Hayward welcomed Hudson’s smear (at 48:15) with a little knowing snigger, and then got carried away by saying, incredibly:

“I really do think our processes are incredibly transparent. I think they’re incredibly fair. And I commend them to this Honourable Court.”

Hayward’s sniggering didn’t last long. Greg Lawrence, a Smithfield butcher who has acquired a reputation for putting Hayward on the ropes with a single verbal punch, asked (at 49:19):

“My question to you is: These questions are so important to the City of London, I put it to you in the review can you look to extend it to 60 minutes rather than lower it to less than 40 minutes?” 

Hayward replied (at 50:05), feigning good humour – the question was, after all, asked by a man, although one who is certainly not a mason, and Hayward generally reserves verbal aggression for women members (see above). At the end of this bruising round of questions, Hayward lamely declared that the review:

“is not necessarily about reducing – it could be about increasing – the amount of time on questions”.

But he wasn’t saying that 8 minutes earlier. And all members know that the chance of the review recommending an increase in question time is absolute zero, because Ian Thomas, the Town Clerk will do whatever Hayward wants him to do (scroll down the link).

Greg Lawrence: a butcher making mincemeat of Hayward.

MASONIC INFLUENCE IN THE COUNCIL

Natasha Lloyd-Owen asked Hayward (at 52:02) a question about the council promoting socio-economic diversity. Hayward read out (at 53:21) a bland statement obviously written by officers.

She then sprang the following supplementary question (at 54:47) which left Hayward looking like a rabbit caught in headlights:

“In order for the Corporation to meet its equality objectives, the organisation’s leadership needs to be fully committed to resourcing and championing equality, diversity and inclusion. Members will no doubt be aware of the recent controversy surrounding the Garrick Club, and heavy criticism of those who held membership of a club that functioned to foster relationships between men at the centre of public institutions and that barred women from entry as members: a controversy which led to the head of MI6 and the head of the civil service both resigning from the Garrick, acknowledging that membership was at odds with their organisations’ commitment to improving equality and diversity.

Will the Chair of Policy agree that leaders in central and local government should not hold membership of organisations that bar women from entry as members.”

Hayward gulped (at 55:39) that her question was “explosive”. Everyone present would have recognised that the target of her question was the fact that most of the top leaders of the City Council are masons, who “bar women from entry as members”, including Hayward (Chair of Policy), Keith Bottomley (Deputy Chair of Policy) (scroll down the link), Shravan Joshi (Chair of Planning) and Michael Mainelli (Lord Mayor), plus 26% of all male members of the council – compared with the national average of 0.3%.

Hayward fumbled through excuses about the clubs mentioned being private ones and their activities were within the law, blah, and it was a matter of “freedom of choice of any individual”, blah, blah…

His attempt to keep his answer focused on private clubs (where members can network, but owe each other no obligation except sociability within club premises) and well away from the masons (where members owe each other lifelong fraternal obligations wherever they may be) turned out to be of no avail when Alder Sue Pearson followed up with the following devastating question (at 56:28):

“Members of masonic lodges, like the Guildhall Lodge [of which Hayward was until recently the master, and has been succeeded by Mainelli], are networking and establishing relationships behind closed doors and in rooms from which women are excluded. Are you seriously saying that these networks don’t extend into the Guildhall itself, and don’t disadvantage female members of this council?”

Hayward made a weak attempt to say just that (at 56:57), but it was as unconvincing as a man claiming to buy Playboy only to read the articles. He attempted a faint smear by saying there was a “constant suspicion” around the masons on the council, implying that those who held this suspicion were unreasonable and/or ill-intentioned, but read here about how masonry has shaped the whole culture of the council, or simply observe how masons like him behave.

Hayward trotted out the usual soundbites that “masonic lodges are not illegal organisations” (as if not being illegal is any commendation for an organisation’s existence), “they do a lot for charity” (so did Jimmy Savile) and “I do not believe they undermine this Corporation’s work” (contradicting fellow mason Mark Wheatley, who recently admitted that the masonic presence among members produced a tendency to conform, and that this caused many problems, including “unpleasant clubbability” (scroll down the link).

Alders Sue Pearson and Martha Grekos: two brave women in the midst of masonic cowards

APPEASEMENT OF REPRESSIVE REGIMES

Alder Martha Grekos then asked Hayward the following question (at 58:09):

“The Chinese Ambassador to the UK has for the last two years been banned from entering Parliament. The blog site Reclaim EC1 has revealed that only two months ago the same Chinese Ambassador was invited by the Lord Mayor to be guest of honour at a reception at Mansion House. Will the Policy Chair admit that it is wrong for the City of London Corporation to be at such odds with our parliamentarians, and will he and the Lord Mayor now follow the national lead and ban the Chinese Ambassador from entering Mansion House and the Guildhall?”

Hayward admitted (at 58:50) that the Chinese Ambassador had been present at Mansion House for a “charity reception” in February 2024, emphasising the word “charity”, as Jimmy Savile used to do. (When will this council get more competent PR staff to brief him?) He thought that the banning of this ambassador was a matter for the parliamentarians, and indicated that the City council would not follow their lead – a dangerously bold position to take, given that the parliamentarians could (and, in our view, should) abolish this council with a stroke of the legislative pen. He claimed that the council followed the lead of the government, which is untrue: the warmth shown towards the thuggish Chinese regime by appeasers like Hayward and Mainelli, with most members not daring to speak against them, has long since ceased to be shown by the government.

Grekos went to this point directly in her supplementary question (at 1:00:08):

“Can the Chairman explain to me if he thinks that promoting trade justifies appeasing brutality?”

Hayward admitted (at 1:00:23) that “our job here at the City Corporation is to promote trade and business”, but evaded the part of her question about the morality of doing so, as the City council always does. He claimed that the council did not “engage in foreign policy”, which is an outright lie, as evidenced by statements made the Lord Mayor at 19:36 of this meeting and Hayward himself at 26:17. He added that “this is not the first time I’ve made this point to this Honourable Court”, but repeating a lie does not make it true.

It is noticeable that at this point Hayward’s body language had significantly changed: his arm was defensively crossed against himself, and his hand was held up to his mouth as if unconsciously trying to cover the falsehoods coming out of it. He then tried to distract attention from the moral point of the question by reading out a lengthy, carefully worded statement written by officers, listing what the City council did in its relationship with China, and repeating how it followed the government in that regard. We have, though, been here before: on the evening of 9th November 1938, the City council roared approval of Chamberlain’s appeasement speech at the Lord Mayor’s Banquet in the same hour that kristallnacht was taking place. Their excuse might have been that they were following government policy, but at what cost?

The only new and interesting thing that Hayward said in his speech was at the end, and was so couched in bureaucratic language that it was easy to miss, but was to the effect that the government might soon take a harder line on China, and the morally bankrupt City council “would of course adjust our engagement accordingly”.

THE TOWN CLERK BLUNDERS (AGAIN)

It turned out that McMurtrie could not have asked his question about shortening the time available for questions on a worse day. After Ceri Wilkins had put a challenging question to Hayward (at 1:04:04) about providing further funding to remedy the City council’s grotesque neglect of the maintenance of its housing estates, her ward colleague Dawn Frampton rose to ask a supplementary, but Ian Thomas, the Town Clerk, told her (at 1:09:21) that she could not because the 40 minute limit had been reached. Under the proposal for a shorter time limit, which Hayward and his clique obviously support, Wilkins’ main question would not even have been put.

Even worse, Frampton’s supplementary was not timed out at all. As anyone can verify from the recording of the meeting, the first questioner began speaking at 29:29, and Thomas closed the session at 1:09:21 – making a difference of 38 minutes, not 40. Natasha Lloyd-Owen leapt to her feet (at 1:09:57) to point this out, but to no avail. Thomas made the ridiculous statement that “the official time that we’ve been keeping says that we’ve had 40 minutes”. So he’s ruled that the City council can take an official position that is verifiably untrue.

Thomas needs to go. He simply isn’t worth his £233,000 + salary. When Lloyd-Owen challenged him, he should have realised that she was likely to be correct, because as a barrister she was unlikely to make a false statement to the council. He should also have realised that she could be proved right by the council’s own recording of the meeting. Someone competent in his position would have checked with the officer who was keeping the time whether they were sure that the 40 minutes was up. They couldn’t have been, because it wasn’t. In case of doubt, Thomas should have allowed the question, saying that this would be the last one. But Thomas isn’t there to be competent: he’s there to do the will of his political masters, led by Hayward, who don’t want a single question more – and want several questions less.

Natasha Lloyd-Owen, who can count up to 40, and Ian Thomas, who can’t.

Incidentally, while the Town Clerk was saying that the 40 minute limit had been reached (at 1:09:21), Mainelli, the Lord Mayor, can be seen sitting behind him busily reading a message on his phone, in accordance with his usual rude practice. As already noted, Mainelli is a mason. He’s been heard to say off the record, though, that he doesn’t like what masons “do to women” – an interesting choice of words.

In the councillor elections in March 2025, we would like to see what women and enlightened men will do to the masons and their collaborators on this council as regards getting them off it – especially in business wards like Broad Street and Coleman Street, which Hayward and McMurtrie respectively “represent”. Hayward and his clique may strut around now, making this council even less democratic than it already is, denying that masonry is a problem, appeasing evil abroad and gaslighting and smearing anyone who opposes them, but many in this ancien régime may already be standing within the shadow of the electoral guillotine.