On the same day as the national election in the UK on 4 July 2024, there is a local council by-election in the City of London’s Farringdon Within ward. Below we provide a rundown of the four candidates – Edward Goodchild, Jani Levanen, Gerard O’Sullivan and David Williams. All are standing as ‘independents’.
There is no election in Cripplegate on the same day because only one candidate stood in the contest there and so independent Liz King has been elected alderwoman (senior councillor) unopposed. We understand that several potential candidates decided not to stand because they believed King would humiliate them with a landslide win.
In a democratic party system there would have been an opposition candidate and King would have had the chance to demonstrate how amazingly popular she is with the Cripplegate electorate. Uncontested elections occur all too often in the City’s broken and undemocratic voting system where the overwhelming majority of candidates pretend not to be party affiliated – although this is only true of some of them.
Returning to the Farringdon Within candidates, Edward Goodchild (mason) has a solid track record of losing City elections. When standing to be Alder of Walbrook in July 2022, he finished fourth out five candidates, polling 19 votes compared with the winner’s 102.
When standing to be a councillor in Castle Baynard ward in March 2023, he was defeated by fellow mason Michael Hudson (who was caught on camera snoozing through a colleague’s speech in a council meeting, although in his defence that colleague was Graham Packham).
When standing for election to be Alder of that ward in July 2023, Goodchild was heavily defeated by Martha Grekos. During the hustings for that election, Goodchild made a sneering and insinuating jibe about Grekos at 19:03 here. It did him no good, as he polled 18 votes to her 173.
Goodchild stood in the same ward in both of its last two elections. During the Alder hustings, he talked up his connection with the ward, declaring (at 16:53 of the recording): “Whatever the election outcome, it’s still my ward”. How does he explain to the voters of Farringdon Within that he is now seeking to represent them when Castle Baynard is “still my ward”? Or will he say the same thing about Farringdon Within? And about whichever other ward he stands in next if he loses this election?
Edward Goodchild (right), Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies, attending the masonic installation of John Reid as the fifteenth Provincial Grand Master for Wiltshire in Trowbridge on 6 October 2022.
Goodchild’s proposer was David Wootton, a retired Alder and fellow mason. In fact, Wootton is as near to the top of the masonry in England as it’s possible to be. He’s recently been elevated from “Deputy Grand Master” to “Second Grand Principal” (scroll down to the last paragraph of the link). In masonry, it seems that everyone who’s anyone has “grand” in their title, which says a lot about the men who join this cult.
Currently 26% of the male members of the City council are masons, as are a majority of those in the most senior positions: the Lord Mayor (= ceremonial head of the council), Michael Mainelli, the Chair of Policy (= political head of the council), Chris Hayward, the Deputy Chair of Policy (= deputy political head of the council), Keith Bottomley and the Chair of Planning, Shravan Joshi, all swear by the Great Architect. The influence that masonry has on the City council is analysed in detail here.
No-one has tried to rebut the reasoning of that piece, which concludes that masonry in the City council is a fundamental problem. Even a masonic member, speaking behind closed doors but reported on this website, acknowledged masonry’s baleful influence: scroll down to the middle of this piece to see what Mark Wheatley said about his brethren on the council.
In the light of all this, a question for the voters of Farringdon Within is whether they want the masonic percentage of members of the council to increase still further by voting for Goodchild? Perhaps the other three candidates will make public statements about whether or not they too are masons.
A curious feature about this election is that none of the five nominators of each of the four candidates is a sitting councillor in the ward. Those councillors are a somewhat disparate group: Brendan Barns, Matthew Bell, John Edwards, John Foley, Ann Holmes, Florence Keelson-Anfu and Eamonn Mullally. Will any of them support whoever might become their future colleague, at least for the next 8 months, as whoever wins this election will need to do it all over again in the general councillor elections to be held in March 2025?
That said, the wife of John Edwards is Paula Dorothea Edwards. They live in the ward. She would appear to be the same “Paula D. Edwards” as the proposer of candidate Jani Levanen.* If so, why didn’t John Edwards put his own name on the nomination paper, which would be a stronger endorsement?
At least part of the answer can probably be found in the form of Levanen’s website,** which reveals him to be a monumentally uninspiring clockwork liveryman! He’s already published on a single page of his website his draft messages should he win or lose the election:
THANK YOU
It has been an incredible journey
I have enjoyed every minute and hour of running the campaign. The support I have received from you all has been incredible. Unfortunately, I did not get enough votes to secure seat in the Common Council, but so thankful to all who shows their support and voted for me.
We made it! Humbled and excited
The results are in and I am over the moon being elected as representative of Farringdon Within to the Common Council. It has been incredible journey over the past months and I am humbled with the number of votes I have received to secure my place. Very excited to join the council and start the work!
We’d guess that publication of these draft win and lose messages was accidental. Regardless of whether allowing the public to see them in advance of the election was deliberate or an error, they reveal Levanen to be so far ‘over the moon’ that he’s lost in space.
The third candidate, Gerard O’Sullivan, didn’t do too well when he stood in Farringdon Within in the 2022 council elections. He came 15th out of 15 candidates. It doesn’t look as if O’Sullivan has broadened his base of support much this time around since at least four of his five nominees are connected to his employer Plastic Energy Ltd, whose registered address is 65 Carter Lane, London EC4V 5DY. O’Sullivan’s LinkedIn profile lists his job as Civil Construction & Integration at Plastic Energy Ltd. He is also listed as an employee of this firm elsewhere on LinkedIn.
O’Sullivan’s seconder Ian Temperton is at the time of writing the sole director of Plastic Energy. O’Sullivan’s proposer is Iria Rodrigues whose LinkedIn profile lists them as office manager at Plastic Energy. We’ve also found profiles for O’Sullivan’s nominees Andy Yabrudy (LinkedIn) and Natalia Mianowska (RocketReach) listing them as Plastic Energy employees. Currently we don’t know whether or not O’Sullivan’s fifth nominee – Vanessa Cristiane Da Silva Gomes – has a connection to Plastic Energy. The reviews of Plastic Energy at Glassdoor are rather mixed and several suggest it is poorly managed.
We’re not sure if O’Sullivan is a buddy of the Alder of the ward, Vincent Keaveny CBE, or if he just blagged a photo opportunity with him – but this picture of the two together is floating around the internet.
On first impression fourth candidate David Williams comes across as more credible than Goodchild, Levanen and O’Sullivan. He appears to be the barrister of that name from the 5 St Andrew’s Hill chambers. That said, he doesn’t seem to have a wide base of support in the Farringdon Within ward given that all his nominees – John Warrington, Gary Pons, John Oliver, David Josse K.C. and Oliver Kirk – belong to 5 St Andrew’s Hill barristers.
The question of whether 5 St Andrew’s Hill chambers has an agenda for the City council which it hopes Williams will carry through could result in some voters being hesitant to support him – but then O’Sullivan as the Plastic Energy candidate is no better, and the other two candidates are even worse! In this way the City’s undemocratic business vote sometimes provides a choice between smaller firms rather than political parties and at others – where one large company dominates the ward or there is only a single candidate – no real choice at all.
David Williams of 5SAH chambers.
Williams appears less of a lame duck than Goodchild, Levanen and O’Sullivan. That said, Williams seemingly being the best of a bad bunch says a lot about what’s wrong with the rotten borough politics of the City of London and its business vote. Typically, none of the Farringdon Within candidates are City of London residents*** and they are all white men.
Finally there is a photo of Edward Goodchild with a ‘when nothing goes right, go left’ framed poster behind him to be found on the internet. Since Goodchild is a centre right candidate, perhaps he is secretly rooting for someone from the left to win in Farringdon Within. David Williams – who includes human rights among the things he specialises in on his LinkedIn profile and elsewhere – may be very slightly to the left of the other three men who are standing, although to us he looks like an establishment centrist. But just perhaps, Goodchild really wants Williams to win.
Notes
*John Edwards and Paula D Edwards were appointed directors of Tudor House (UK) Limited on the same day and both resigned 7 years in December 2021. See: https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/08951307/officers
**We have only been able to find election websites for two of the four candidates in the Farringdon contest – Jani Levanen (link above) and Edward Goodchild. Searches for Edward Goodchild’s ‘votegoodchild’ dot com domain at the Internet Archive show it to have been used to promote minor league South Bend, Indiana, US Democrat politician Rod Goodchild in the recent past. We’d assume the English Goodchild simply bought the domain after Rod Goodchild’s supporters stopped renewing it, and that he may not have been aware of its previous use when he acquired it.
***Update 23 June 2024. Shortly after we posted this blog David Williams added a statement to his Who Can I Vote For Profile that began: “I’ve worked from chambers in the ward for nearly 14 years and live on the edge of the City.” We realised Williams lived on the edge of the City when we looked at his address but on the Tower Hamlets side, so he is not a City resident. His postcode on the Statement As To Persons Nominated shows he is living in the Tower Hamlets ward of Spitalfields and Banglatown. The rest of his statement – in which he pitches himself as the local candidate – reads as follows:
My children attend the Children’s Centre nursery at Aldgate School and my eldest begins ‘big’ school there this year. We’re embedded in the diverse community of people living life and raising kids in the City and I hope to focus on the City delivering real amenity for all; particularly those most frequently there. I’d also love to find better ways to connect the generations living in the City.
I want to positively influence provision of education in the City from a parent’s perspective. I’d like to help the City respond to the need to work outside of Tuesday to Thursday; effective green and public spaces, the need to ensure the City supports businesses (particularly small and independents) to effectively occupy the retail units at street level, non-begrudging public access to toilet facilities, genuine disabled access not provision of an under-maintained lift etc. Commercial development and planning need to deliver support for local nuanced community need.
My life before practise at the bar was in Citizen’s Advice and delivering advocacy in community and inpatient mental health services; I’ll draw on that too.
This statement was last updated on June 21, 2024.
See the statement here. Williams’ statement wasn’t available to us when we finalised the last pre-posting edit of this piece. Even for those who disagree with the implicit position it carries on working from home – which matches Guildhall establishment policy – Williams still appears the most credible candidate in the Farringdon Within councillor by-election. As far as we know, his back to the office on Monday and Friday policy is not something the other candidates have alternative positions on.
It appears Williams agrees with us on issues like public toilets and genuine disabled access. And while it must necessarily be far more extensive, we’d hope that Williams’ desire to positively influence education in the City includes the removal of the racist paintings from the Aldgate School which his children attend.
Below screenshot of Williams’ statement.
RECLAIM EC1 