The Financial Times Calls The City Of London Council Undemocratic: This Local Authority Will Remain That Way Until Westminster Passes Legislation To Abolish Its Business Vote

The City operates an idiosyncratic system of “corporate democracy”. At best it is flawed, at worst a recipe for abuse. A connected problem is the scant choice of candidates. For every councillor position, there are just 1.3 candidates on average, radically fewer than in London’s 32 local boroughs. The aldermanic voting system is particularly open to manipulation. An old acquaintance and former Lord Mayor once told me that one explanation for the City’s sometimes reactionary instincts is a “shadow hanging over the whole structure” of the corporation’s supposedly democratic governance, Freemasonry. Close to a third of councillors are declared masons, including the chairs of nearly all the major committees. Three-quarters of Lord Mayors over the past century have been masons.

City Of London Planning Chair Shravan Joshi’s Register Of Interests & Public Perceptions Of Probity

In February 2023 Shravan Joshi, the chair of the City of London planning committee, supported an application from the Migration Museum for a new development at 65 Crutched Friars. In October 2023, Shravan Joshi’s wife Mira Joshi began working for the Migration Museum. Although Shravan Joshi has updated his register of interests at least twice since his wife took up her new employment – in December 2023 and again in February 2024 – the planning chair has so far failed to include her work at the Migration Museum, whose planning application he supported.

Twin Cities MP Nickie Aiken Picks Up Freedom Of The City Of London Award From Fellow Appeasers Of The Authoritarian Chinese Government

We have previously posted about how the Freedom of the City of London should be treated as a badge of shame rather than one of honour. The latest recipient of this ‘award’ is local Conservative MP Nickie Aiken – who as we reported back in 2021 is as keen to appease China’s repressive rulers as current lord mayor Michael Mainelli and current leader of the City of London council Chris Hayward, who posed for pictures with Aiken as she received their dubious ‘honour’.

Cromwell, Cass, Beckford & Contested Heritage In The City of London

The City’s press release even quotes council leader Chris Hayward stating, “This is the next step in our journey in addressing, in an open and honest way, the City of London’s historic involvement in the horrific slave trade”, despite Hayward having yet to apologise for the fact that as recently as 2020 he was one of the star turns at the City’s then annual celebration of slaver John Cass. Hayward then played a key role in implementing the U-turn on removing the statue. The City council’s inability to address contested heritage in anything approaching an open and honest way is also evident from the fact that discussion of the slaver plaques was a non-public agenda item at the meeting of the Culture, Heritage and Libraries Committee earlier this week (18 September 2023).

The City of London Council, Its Funding Of The Church of England In The Square Mile & Fraud

The company Trust For London Trustees, whose directors have included City of London councillors Peter Estlin. Ian Luder, Alison Gowman, Edward Lord, Rehana Ameer and Sophie Fernande, appears to have been at the centre of Martin Sargeant’s multi-million pound Church of England fraud. Given the blown capital budget at the City council and the funnelling of funds by this local authority to anglican projects that may otherwise have suffered cash shortages as a result of Sargeant’s fraud, all these matters and the individuals implicated in them merit thorough investigation.

Cannon Street Gardens Makeover A Disaster For City & Islington Residents Who Need Green Space

Only to someone spouting propaganda on behalf of the City of London lie machine could ripping up grass and replacing it with a solid feature surrounded by paths constitute ‘urban greening’. Likewise, contra to Shravan Joshi’s disingenuous claims, the remodelled Cannon Street Gardens very obviously won’t be enjoyed by all for a number of reasons. As we’ve made clear this pocket park has been made over in a way that prevents us using it for the leisure activities it previously supported. Another issue is the fact that the colonialist memorial to Admiral Philip Sidney at the edge of the garden has been left where it was despite the remodelling providing a great opportunity to remove it.

City of London Council’s PR Crisis Snowballs As Mass Opposition To Its London Wall West Scheme Receives Widespread Press

Given the Museum of London building is well-known to visitors from outside both the square mile and London, it isn’t surprising that the campaign to save it is already attracting a level of coverage at least approaching that of the recent and successful struggle to save another City landmark, Bevis Marks. However, opposition to the City’s London Wall West plan is just the tip of the iceberg as far as campaigns against overdevelopment go in and around the square mile. There is ongoing opposition to the proposed development at 1 Golden Lane which threatens to block light to Fortune Street Park on the other side of the same road and the borough boundary with Islington. Some of those active in the campaign against the Houndsditch Tower from Middlesex Street Estate have been linking up with residents of Braithwaite House on the Banner Estate in Islington because the council is threatening to build private housing on their podium – and this is a space used for play not just by Banner Estate kids but also children from the Golden Lane and Middlesex Street Estates in the City.

Alison Gowman Out & Michael Mainelli In As Yet Another Guildhall Lodge Mason Picked To Be Lord Mayor Of London In 2023

If the election to become the Lord Mayor of London wasn’t rigged it wouldn’t be the case that more than two-thirds of those elected to this plum post since the founding of the Guildhall Lodge 3116 in 1905 have belonged this tiny masonic coterie. Michael Mainelli’s register of interests shows that like so many of his predecessors he is not just a mason but a member of the Guildhall Lodge. Given that masons constitute significantly less than one percent of the population of England, their massive over-representation within top posts at the City of London council – and not just that of lord mayor – is astoundingly disproportionate. And like current lord mayor Vincent Keaveny and current head of the common council Chris Hayward (also a member of the Guildhall Lodge and a much higher ranking mason than the 2023 lord mayor in waiting), Mainelli has acted as a star turn at the annual City celebration of the slaver John Cass. In fact both Hayward and Mainelli acted as star turns at a celebration of John Cass just two years ago in 2020!

Alison Gowman, Chris Hayward & The City of London Corporation’s Branding & Identity Crisis

As a partner at DLA Piper Alison Gowman appears to us to be remarkably similar to current lord mayor Vincent Keaveny, who is also a partner at DLA Piper. Likewise what is fictional in the tale of Dick Whittington invoked in the FT piece about City changes is the spin of him being a poor boy – he was a historical Lord Mayor of London who came from a privileged family background. That said, for centuries most of those with seats on the City of London council – not just the ‘leadership’ – have come from trade rather than aristocratic family backgrounds. Beyond gender, Gowman appears a rather typical City grandee both in terms of her background and her opportunist politics.

2022 City of London Election: 136 Candidates For 100 Common Council Seats, 19 Elected Unopposed In The Last Rotten Borough

All the candidates in the wards of Bishopsgate, Bridge, Cheap, Cordwainer, Cornhill and Queenhithe gained uncontested council seats – 19 in total, or just under one fifth of the seats up for grabs. Given the difficulties of being nominated in most wards, which is tied to the tiny electorates who also act as nominees, it isn’t surprising that there aren’t enough candidates for truly democratic elections in the City and explains why the overall quality of those elected is so low. The City of London Corporation urgently requires democratic reform to remedy this.

RECLAIM EC1

No To Business Votes, Yes To Democracy!

City of London Lie Machine