The City council’s so-called “independent persons” accepted a malicious and politically motivated complaint about Councillor Marianne Fredericks, and recommended to the council’s elected members that she be censured for being “discriminatory” towards mothers, although she is a mother of four and has done more than anyone else for mothers in the Guildhall. The elected members voted in an unprecedented secret ballot by 58 to 30 in favour of that recommendation, with 11 abstentions. We speculate that the 58 members who voted in favour included: the leadership, who are determined to uphold their authority at all costs, including fairness to an individual member; members who support them to achieve political advancement; members who pay little attention to most council business and habitually follow the herd; members who are jealous of Marianne’s achievements; and most of the aldermen, who often vote as a block. This latest scandal in the City council raises issues about the continuing viability of an institution that is becoming ever more dysfunctional. The need for urgent and radical change is obvious to many outside the Guildhall, and to an increasing number within it, but apparently not to the council’s leadership, who continue acting as if they were in a masonic lodge.