Martha Grekos Wins Castle Baynard Aldermanic Election

On 13 July 2023, the voters in Castle Baynard ward of the City of London elected Martha Grekos as their alderman for the next six years. She defeated six other candidates in one of the hardest fought aldermanic elections in recent times. Her victory signifies more than a personal triumph: it is a major blow to the City Corporation’s establishment, some members of which went to desperate lengths to try to stop her, fearful that as alderman she would vigorously represent her constituents and boldly challenge the Corporation’s poor leadership and masonic culture. The failure of those members to achieve their aim, in spite of the resources they mobilised against her, has dispelled the aura of invincibility which the establishment tries to project.

In this post we consider all the winners and losers in this election.

WINNERS

This is not the first time that Martha Grekos has won against the odds. In the City-wide councillor elections in March 2022, she stood as one of nine candidates for eight seats. All the others belonged to the oxymoronic Castle Baynard Independents Party, which exists to give its members the electoral advantage of standing as a group. In spite of this “party” including councillors of long standing, Grekos won significantly more votes than any of them, resulting in Michael Hudson (a mason) being bumped off the bottom of the list.

During the following year, Grekos did something unusual in the Corporation: she stayed in touch with voters by walking around the ward and publishing her own newsletters, in contrast to most councillors in the City, who have most contact with their constituents during the few weeks before an election. Her newsletters had plenty to report, as she actively took up local causes, but encountered resistance from the Corporation’s establishment (see, for example, at 18:39 here). She then encountered bullying from Ian Luder, mason and outgoing alderman, who spread a lie that she had committed “electoral fraud”. This all led her to conclude that there was no point in continuing to be a councillor, so she resigned in February 2023.

After receiving strong encouragement from some people within the Corporation and many more outside it, she returned to contest this election for alderman, which she won in spectacular style. 

The voters in Castle Baynard ward are all winners in this election, as they now have an alderman who has already proved that she will vigorously represent them.

The cause of reform in the City Corporation is the ultimate winner, as Grekos has already proved that she will challenge its poor leadership and masonic culture. 

LOSERS

The other six candidates were not registered on the ward list (= electoral roll), as Grekos was, and so were unable to vote in this election themselves. This reflected a lack of a substantive connection with the ward that may have accounted for their receiving less votes. So too may have their inept campaigns, which we have previously reviewed. Readers can form their own judgment by watching the performances of all the candidates at the “ward mote” hustings in this recording. Here’s how they all fared in the election:

Waheeda Shah scored nul points, perhaps making her more suited to representing Britain in Eurovision than Castle Baynard in the City Corporation.

Wincie Wong and Desirée Artesi scored single figures, after late and lacklustre campaigns.

Edward Goodchild (mason) scored even fewer votes in this election (18) than he did in the recent councillor by-election (47). He made an insinuating jibe at Grekos in his speech at the hustings: see 19:03 here. So much for “kindness” being a masonic virtue. 

Sally Bridgeland’s eccentric practices of appealing to non-voters and riding round the ward on a bicycle with a little flag, like a character in a 1950s television series, produced a predictably low tally of votes.

It was clear from the outset that Sushil Saluja was the only serious rival to Grekos, but only because he had the full backing of the ward’s alderman, Ian Luder, a majority of its councillors, listed below, and a number of senior Corporation figures. All this support would normally secure an easy victory. Saluja lost, though, not for want of effort on the part of himself or his supporters, but because he had nothing to offer voters except some amateurish spin. His first pitch was to present himself as chair of the Castle Baynard Business Forum, an organisation which was created to promote his candidacy and which we predict will vanish now his candidacy has ended. After this phantom forum was exposed, he started copying Grekos’ campaigning in an obvious and clumsy manner. Once this copying was exposed, he adopted an original but bad idea of making a series of short videos that showed himself standing in front of buildings in the ward and awkwardly reading a script. Here’s one of them on this link. As the election approached, he went around the ward introducing his wife and mother to bemused voters.

The greatest criticism to be made of Saluja, though, is not his own dismal campaigning, but:

– letting himself be used by Luder to become yet another alderman who would uphold the masonic values of the Corporation (more on which below); and

– engaging in negative campaigning against Grekos, together with some ward councillors acting on his behalf.

Graham Packham, the ward “deputy” (= senior councillor) and a local resident, was one of those councillors. You can read his background by scrolling down here. He campaigned assiduously on Saluja’s behalf, going so far as to try to persuade at least two of the five electors who nominated Grekos to vote for Saluja instead. (He failed.) At the ward mote hustings, he used his position as ward deputy to read out questions put by voters by email. One question was for all candidates, but three were directed at Grekos alone. The presiding officer, Alderman Alison Gowman, allowed only one question to be put to a single candidate, which was fair, but then allowed Packham to read out not the first question on the list, as she had originally directed, but the second, because Packham claimed that Grekos had answered the first question already.

We have discovered that the first question concerned Grekos’ resignation as a councillor, which had been sneakily dressed up in an earlier question put to all candidates by John Griffiths (see below). The second question that Packham chose to read out concerned the false allegation that Grekos had “lost” an electoral registration case, which was the subject of the bullying against her. Rather than making Grekos flustered by smearing her character, the question that Packham read out gave her an opportunity to debunk the smear comprehensively and reveal her character as a courageous and principled woman. Her speech in reply is magnificent, and an inspiration to all women who have faced bullying. It is well worth watching here at 1:13:30.

As already noted, John Griffiths, another ward councillor, asked a question that targeted Grekos while pretending to be addressed to all candidates (see at 40:20 here). In her reply (at 41:42), she calmly exposed what he was doing, and gave an answer which turned his attempt to smear her into a positive reason to vote for her.

Henrika Priest is, like Packham, a long time ward councillor and local resident. She has a low profile in the Corporation, but had a high one in backing Saluja against Grekos.

Mary Durcan, who last year switched from representing Cripplegate ward (where she lives) to Castle Baynard (where she doesn’t), was also active in backing Saluja against Grekos. 

Catherine McGuinness, a ward councillor and former Chair of Policy (= leader of the council), backed Saluja against Grekos too, although not as actively as the others (as far as we can tell, but much of what was said to voters didn’t reach us). Like Priest and Durcan, she remained silent when Grekos was bullied by Luder, just as they all did when two other woman councillors were previously bullied by senior male members of the Corporation. Immediately after the result was announced in this election, McGuinness rushed to be one of the first to congratulate Grekos. It is this kind of behaviour that gives politics such a bad name.

Fake goodwill is not confined to McGuinness. We have been shown, by more than one source, messages on a WhatsApp group for women in the Corporation that warmly congratulate Grekos, but were sent by members who didn’t send any messages of support when she was being viciously bullied, let alone speak out against it. There isn’t a WhatsApp group for men in the Corporation, but knowing the character of many of them, we are confident that they will now be sending Grekos warm emails that contain no hint of embarrassment that they condoned or even participated in the bullying of her.

Saluja was the only candidate to appoint an election agent, who was Jim Durcan, the husband of Mary (mentioned above) and active in Labour Party politics. Here’s a warning to all candidates in future City elections: even if you have the weight of a ward machine behind you, don’t appoint Jim Durcan as your agent if you want to win.

The identity of those who voted for Saluja must be a matter of speculation, but from what we’ve observed it was likely to have been a mixture of:

– typically uninterested voters appointed by big businesses and prevailed on to turn out to vote, probably by someone in their business who was friendly with one of Saluja’s backers; and

– residents whose minds had been poisoned against Grekos with the same smears that emerged in the planted questions in the hustings. 

Some of the business voters who turned up at the polling station had so little idea of what they were doing that Saluja gave them his business cards so they would know which name on the ballot paper they should put a cross against.

Those who voted for Grekos certainly included other residents, a lot of small business owners and some big business appointees, including law firms.

Most of the aldermen can’t be pleased with the result of this election, with one clear exception being Sue Pearson, who was seen acting as teller for Grekos outside the polling station. The aldermen typically like people joining them to:

– dress up for banquets in their silly costumes (one of which resembles that of a page boy);

– participate in block voting in council meetings to swing the outcome of motions in favour of the establishment; and

– generally uphold the values of the Corporation, which include appeasing genocide in China and wasting hundred of thousands of pounds on entertainment on a single day to promote their “Destination City” PR exercise while claiming that they can’t find the funds to repair the Corporation’s housing estates that are crumbling after decades of neglect.

We expect that Grekos will do none of these things. Indeed it was she who, while a councillor, exposed the entertainment spending scandal in a question to the Chair of Policy (see at 57:10 here).

That Chair of Policy, Christopher Hayward (mason), must regret his premature exultation over Grekos’ resignation as a councillor: in a non-public council meeting on 28/2/23, he verbally kicked her thinking she was down, and was joined in this behaviour by Simon Duckworth (mason), the Chief Commoner at the time, and Shravan Joshi (mason), the Chair of Planning (scroll down here).

Hayward is already struggling to answer questions at council meetings from members who have no powers of advocacy: see his lamentable performance when explaining why official ward newsletters had been suspended and his need to rely on a subsequent written statement to regain control of the issue. Faced with the formidable advocacy that Grekos (a successful barrister) displayed when she was a councillor and at the hustings for this election, the message for him about her return is : Be afraid. Be very afraid.

Michael Snyder (mason), who was one of Hayward’s predecessors as Chair of Policy, will soon encounter the awkwardness of passing Grekos in a Guildhall corridor after he made petulant remarks about her at a meeting of the Policy and Resources Committee three weeks before she resigned: watch at 4:17 of this recording.

So will Simon Duckworth (mason), who commented at the same meeting (at 6:15) that: “We have a practice and policy of not criticising members in public. It is not the sort of behaviour that should be seen in a public body, and that is a point which should be made quite forcibly to the individual concerned” [Grekos]. That is pure masonry. The City Corporation is a public body whose members are supposed to be democratically elected to engage in democratic politics, and that entails criticism of the actions of other members. Imagine the public derision that a member of parliament would incur by saying that “we have a principle and a practice in this House of not criticising members in public …”.

What so upset Snyder and Duckworth was Grekos telling the truth (at 18:31 here) about the way their committee rejected an application to designate St Bride’s Tavern in Grekos’ ward as an “asset of community value”, which was recommended by officers but unwelcome to a property developer.   

This election result was not a good one for the masons generally, who account for a wholly disproportionate 26% of the male members of the Corporation. That’s not specifically because one of their brethren – Edward Goodchild – failed to be elected. Their influence on the Corporation is deeper and more subtle than that. As previously explained, they have shaped the culture of the organisation in their own image, so that the principles of unity, hierarchy and secrecy are observed by a majority of members, even though most of them are not masons, and some members – the women – are barred from joining their lodges even if they wanted to.

The masons don’t like being mentioned, but during the last year people have been increasingly referring in public to the apron wearing elephant in the Guildhall. In response to a question that we put more than four months ago (scroll down here), not one of them has publicly (or, as far as we know, privately) criticised the behaviour of Brothers Luder, Hayward, Duckworth, Snyder or Joshi. A powerful advocate like Grekos who is now in a more senior position and who has shown no respect for the masons’ principles of unity, hierarchy and secrecy – which are all antithetical to democracy – is a real threat to their influence over the Corporation. 

The final loser in this election is Ian Luder. He tried, and failed, to leave as his legacy a successor who would willingly embrace the prevalent culture in the Corporation. Instead, his successor is the person whom he would least want to have in that role – a woman who didn’t succumb to his bullying or to negative campaigning, and who will contribute to the destruction of the bully boy culture he embodied.

At a meeting of the Court of Aldermen on 11 July 2023, David Wootton (mason) read out a eulogy to Luder in true masonic style, full of undeserved praise. It airbrushed out Luder’s manifest failings, some of which we listed here.

Although that list was published only seven weeks ago, it needs updating. In his last fortnight in office, Luder bullied yet another woman councillor. This time it was Alpa Raja, a councillor in his ward who didn’t back Saluja. He asked her to accept the position of treasurer in two small educational charities in the ward which he chaired and which were to be wound up because their original purposes were obsolescent: not many children live in Castle Baynard. (One has to wonder why these charities weren’t wound up long ago.) After she politely and reasonably explained why she didn’t want to take on the role, he wrote increasingly aggressive emails which he copied to her ward colleagues and in which he tried to shame her into doing what he wanted. She finally told him to cease this bullying; it is rumoured that she may make a formal complaint against him.

Luder is so lacking in self-awareness that he unwittingly wrote his own political epitaph at the end of his response to Wootton’s unctuous address at the Court of Aldermen meeting. Luder said (at 10:59 of this recording) that “Of the course the whole time for Lin [his wife] and me since 2009 [when his term of office as Lord Mayor ended] has been overshadowed by my being the first to receive a CBE and not a K[BE, i.e. knighthood], notwithstanding what is now 47 years of continuous public service”.

The national honours system is being increasingly discredited, as is evident from the number of mediocrities in the Corporation who have received an undeserved knighthood, damehood, CBE, OBE or MBE. Luder’s valedictory whine sounds like a prompt to the City Remembrancer to do right by him 14 years later and get him the knighthood which he and his wife have obsessively coveted for so long. But the Luders’ lobbying may be too late: if the City Remembrancer couldn’t secure a knighthood last month for Vincent Keaveny, who was just another ineffective Lord Mayor, how can he procure one so much later for an individual who is so tainted by scandals of his own making?