Incompetence Of City Council Leader Chris Hayward Exposed Yet Again By Bevis Marks Row & His Failure To Properly Answer Members’ Questions

City council boss Chris Hayward isn’t fit to lead cosplay activities, let alone a local authority. That didn’t stop him from taking on the role of master of the Guildhall Lodge 3116, until he stepped down earlier this year to allow lord mayor Michael Mainelli to head the masonic cosplay outfit to which much of the council ‘leadership’ belong.

Freemasons Official posts about Michael Mainelli taking over from Chris Hayward as Master of the Guildhall Lodge (occupying the Chair of King Solomon) on 7 March 2024. More than two-thirds of City of London lord mayors have held membership of the Guildhall masonic lodge since its founding in 1905.

Hawyard’s hubris and incompetence will not be news to City council watchers. Last week we covered Hayward being lambasted by former lord mayor Michael Bear over planning issues. Earlier this week the Evening Standard picked up the story:

Bevis Marks Synagogue, the oldest synagogue in the UK, says it is at risk of being overshadowed by a proposed 43-storey tower at 31 Bury Street.

A former Lord Mayor has now raised concerns about the Corporation’s “political leader” Chris Hayward’s directorship at lobbying company JBP, which works with developers, while the plans are under consideration.

In a letter to the Corporation seen by the Standard, Sir Michael Bear said it was a “matter of outrage” that Mr Hayward had declared an interest by working for one of the developer’s consultants.

However, Mr Hayward – the de-facto political leader of Corporation – later said he had been mistakenly advised in declaring the interest and that JBP in fact had no current part in the scheme.

“It is a matter of outrage that the Chair of Policy, the “Political Leader” of the City, has recently declared a pecuniary interest in this development as a Director of JBP, a public affairs and lobbying company, employed on this project by the Developer,” said Sir Michael.

“Although the Policy Chair does not sit on the Planning and Transportation Committee, he is highly influential within the Corporation, chairs the Policy and Resources Committee and is a member of the Local Plans Sub-Committee.”

Bevis Marks: Political row over plans for skyscraper near historic City synagogue. Row erupts over Corporation political leader’s role at company which advises developers by Josh Salisbury, Evening Standard, 21 May 2024. See the whole piece here.

This new plot twist, which emerged after we ran the story last week, reveals Hayward to be thoroughly incompetent. Bear cited information that Hayward had provided about himself, which Hayward now says is false. The Guildhall establishment habitually scores own goals, but this one by Hayward is among the most spectacular.

Acting like a typical low-level politician, Hayward hasn’t admitted any fault on his part for this colossal blunder. He claims to have been ‘mistakenly advised’, thus passing the blame on to an unnamed minion. Everything points to this advisor being a City council officer.

Bear claims that the Town Clerk, Ian Thomas, confirmed the false information which Hayward had given him.

Thomas has a track record for ineptitude. Witness his hapless chairing of the internal consultations on the “special responsibility allowances” (about which nothing further has been heard since the public exposure of those consultations) and his closing a 40 minute public question session after 38 minutes because the “official” time was 40 minutes (when the Corporation’s own recording proves it was at 38 minutes).

Ultimately, Hayward is responsible for statements he makes about his own interests. If he was mistakenly advised, it’s a reflection on his judgment that he relies on an incompetent advisor, whoever it was. It would in any case be more dignified if he just said that the information he had given was wrong, instead of making an officer the fall guy – whether it was Thomas or a subordinate for whom Thomas is responsible.

No need to feel sorry for Thomas, though: he can console himself with his salary of £230,000 + per year. For that amount, who wouldn’t mind being blamed but not named by a floundering politician who doesn’t know his head from a hole in the ground?

Despite Hayward’s endless attempts to shift the blame for his own failures and shortcomings onto others, this didn’t prevent him glibly praising the ‘professionalism’ of City officers as ‘the envy of the public sector’ at yesterday’s (23/05/24) full council meeting (see 14.40 here) – a claim likely to be contradicted by any resident living on a City estate who has had dealings with the officers running the repairs team.

The guff about professionalism came shortly after Hayward had made the annual City Corporation lie – using inflated and distorted statistics – about the contribution the financial and professional services industries make to the UK economy (at 12.12).

Equally predictably at yesterday’s full council meeting, Hayward got over-emotional when replying to a fastidiously courteous question from Mark Wheatley about the possibility of the council’s ‘Destination City’ policies leading to an increasing centralisation of power (at 47.50).

Wheatley was roundly abused by Hayward, with the council ‘leader’ deploying phrases like ‘grow up’ and ‘childish nonsense’.

Hayward has boasted in the national press about imposing his ‘increase square mile office space at any cost’ policy on others, but this didn’t stop him claiming yesterday ‘no one of us has individual power’.

What Hayward told the Financial Times in February about his diktats and what he had to say about power sharing at the last full council meeting can’t both be true.

These contradictory statements are probably best accounted for by Hayward seemingly thinking of himself as omnipotent, while his endless shortcomings as a ‘leader‘ leave him constantly floundering as the head of a local authority.

Moving on, yesterday Hayward gave a less than convincing response to Paul Martinelli who suggested the chair of policy had subverted the will of the council’s members by recommending his political and masonic mentor Michael Snyder for an unprecedented seventh year as chair of the Capital Buildings Board.

Martinelli also pointed out this wasn’t the only time Snyder had served as the chair of a committee beyond the allotted three years (from 138.40) – something few else have managed. Once again Hayward fell back on officer advice as justification for his actions.

Greg Lawrence followed up by making explicit the masonic connections between Hayward and Snyder, and also brought up the unresolved issue of Hayward’s problematic work for Keltbray (see from 150.00).

Natasha Lloyd-Owen used a further supplementary question to give Hayward a roasting after his bruising at the hands of Martinelli and Lawrence, adding additional logic and an advocate’s touch to the issue of chairs overstaying their time in charge of committees.

Hayward responded by saying: “I’m always very nervous when I rise to respond to a lawyer’s question of any sort because you know the legal rules and I don’t and therefore I’m in the hands of those professionals who advise the City Corporation…” (from 158.30).

At yesterday’s council meeting, Hayward once again failed to properly answer questions put to him, while passing the buck and essentially claiming to be blameless of anything because he’s completely clueless.

Being clueless, which was implicit in Hayward’s response to Lloyd-Owen, is not a quality on which effective leadership is built. After years of not just poor performance but also a string of atrocious judgments that have negatively impacted the lives of those living both in the City and beyond it, Hayward should step down as both a local authority ‘leader’ and a councillor.

After yesterday’s charade of a council meeting, even Hayward’s BlackRock business vote backers must surely start to view him as an embarrassment and a liability.

We’d also like to see Hayward’s dwindling band of supporters at the City council go – ranging from Snyder (dependent on undemocratic Bloomberg business votes for his seat) to Oliver Sells and Tijs Broeke. The latter tried to protect Hayward by raising a point of order – Broeke seems to favour ingratiation as a method of political advancement.

Sells also tried to help Hayward out, but misjudged the situation and ended up embarrassing his ‘leader’ with a proposal that there was a case for having a long serving committee chair for the sake of continuity.

Lloyd-Owen shredded Sells’ suggestions when she spoke. She’s evidently a far more accomplished lawyer than Sells and would clearly make a better local authority leader than anyone in the Guildhall establishment camp.

The header shows City of London councillors Michael Snyder (left) and his protégé – in both local politics & freemasonry – Chris Hayward (2nd from right) fraternising.

Chris Hayward at John Cass Founder’s Day 27 February 2020, start of annual parade celebrating the notorious slaver outside the Sir John Cass’s Foundation at 31 Jewry Street, London EC3N 2EY. At the front in City of London council red alderman and sheriffs robes (as also worn by John Cass in the statue unseen here but directly above them – statue subsequently removed), left to right, Michael Mainelli (sheriff), Andrew Parmley (former lord mayor) and Chris Hayward (sheriff).