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 Council Leaders Propose That They Be Paid (A Lot) More – While Their Social Housing Tenants Shiver In Poorly Insulted Homes & Face A Rent Hike

Over the last few years, the leaders of the City of London council have quietly been preparing the way for a proposal that has now emerged – that they be paid substantial “special responsibility allowances” on top of their existing substantial perks and privileges. These same leaders have refused to spend a single penny of the council’s “City’s Estate” fund (formerly called “City’s Cash”) – out of which their “special responsibility allowances” will be paid – on accelerating the renovation of the council’s relatively small housing estates, which have fallen into disrepair due to decades of neglect, which is in turn due to decades of poor leadership. So City tenants shiver in winter because window replacements that have been overdue for decades remain on the council’s “to do” list, while the payment of “special responsibility allowances” to the leaders are to be implemented “as quickly as possible” in the 2024-25 financial year.

National Press Joins Chorus Of Criticism Over City Of London’s Relationship With Chinese Government & Singles Out Mayor Michael Mainelli For Rebuke

This blog and many people – including City of London councillors, some of whom share a good many of our positions and others who are at odds with us on most issues – have long criticised the ruling clique at the City council for cozying up to the authoritarian Chinese regime. Now national newspaper The Mail has got in on the act, singling out new lord mayor Michael Mainelli for criticism. The buck shouldn’t stop with Mainelli, who is merely echoing positions held by the Guildhall establishment in its entirety.

Yet Another Standards Scandal At The City Of London Council

Marianne Fredericks has been censured at a full council meeting after a complaint was made about her remarking in a non-public, informal “away day” of the Community and Children’s Services Committee that a member’s absence from certain sub-committee meetings might be due to “looking after baby” – a responsibility with which Marianne is familiar, having had four of them herself, and currently being actively involved in the upbringing of two grandchildren. Three members – none of them friends of Marianne – made a fuss, claiming disingenuously that this (factual and sympathetic) remark was a shocking thing to say.

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.

Public Art In The City Of London: The Problematic Case Of The World Reimagined

From our long look at the World Reimagined, as well as other City of London council projects such as its Historic Landmarks Consultation, it seems our local authority only wants to acknowledge what it can’t dodge and still hopes to conceal much of its unsavoury history. The City of London’s unwillingness to deal systematically and seriously with problematic historic memorials – something neighbouring Hackney council has done impeccably – is indicative of its unwillingness to deal resolutely with the obvious inequalities as regards its top civic posts. To date of the 693 people to be Lord Mayor of London – the council’s top post – 691 have been white men and 2 have been white women.

Alastair King and Andrew Marsden Winners In Rigged City Of London Sheriffs ‘Election’

On 24 June 2022 at the Guildhall the only candidate for the post of aldermanic sheriff, Alastair King, was ‘elected’. Likewise, Andrew Marsden was ‘elected’ non-aldermanic sheriff since there were no other candidates for that office either. In short, like every year, what took place was a fake election with the result a forgone conclusion. Given the absurd over-representation of freemasons in top posts at the City of London council, it didn’t surprise us that a quick search suggested Andrew Marsden was a big fish in the small pond of livery lodges. A page on the Shepherds Bush Lodge website not only listed Marsden as a founding master of the Wellington Livery Masters Lodge, it also featured a photo in which there is a man who looks like the newly elected non-aldermanic sheriff, with current leader of the City of London council Christopher Hayward also identifiable in the picture.

Remove The Drax Slaver Memorials From St Anne and St Agnes Church AKA The Voces8 Centre In The City of London

St Anne and St Agnes church now houses the Voces8 Centre, a choir group and ‘educational’ charity that not only features the busts of the Drax slavers in a good number of promotional photographs currently to be found on its website and elsewhere, but also unapologetically promotes the building it is housed in as the work of slave trade investor Christopher Wren. Likewise the Voces8 Centre isn’t shy about featuring the coat of arms of Charles II in pictures of the interior of its building. Charles II is the monarch who issued the 1663 charter to the Royal Adventurers which marks the moment at which the transatlantic slave trade officially began, with royal approval, in the English (later British) Empire.

Edward Lord, The City Of London Council & How Their Neo-Liberal Lobbying Undermines Equality & Diversity

Given their ideological nature, neo-liberal projects are prone to unravelling – particularly when they are additionally hobbled by the lobbyist’s spin someone like Edward Lord brings to them. Lord’s is a neo-liberal ideology that doesn’t just tolerate certain manifestations of intersectionality, it celebrates intersectionality that has been economically disciplined and commodified to generate money at the expense of any real sense of community. Thus Lord is only a ‘champion’ of diversity and inclusion in as far as these things further neo-liberal ideology. Lord has demonstrated in practice they will lobby for and reputation wash oil rich authoritarian regimes – such as the government of Azerbaijan – in preference to standing up for human rights and LGBT+ communities.

Mark Wheatley, Chris Hayward & The Recommendation To Retain The Guildhall’s William Beckford Slaver Statue

Reuters ran a story yesterday about an apparent City of London council U-turn on the decision to remove slaver statues from its Guildhall headquarters. This was picked up initially by Eastern Eye and then by UK national rags The Times and The Telegraph. The Reuters template for the piece was only subjected to minor tinkering before appearing in different outlets. What the media to date has failed to pick up on are the political backgrounds of those on the council committee that made the recommendation, something a diligent and unbiased journalist would have reported.

RECLAIM EC1

No To Business Votes, Yes To Democracy!

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