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.

Even Conservative Home Thinks The Abolished City Of London Standards Committee Was Rotten, Albeit For The Wrong Reasons

Here at Reclaim EC1 we’re not regular readers of the Conservative Home site but it is occasionally worth a look. Judith Barnes, who led the Conservative Group on Camden Council for eight years and practised as a lawyer for most of her professional life, wrote a piece for Conservative Home earlier this month in which she spoke about what was wrong with the now abolished City of London Standards Committee. Her piece doesn’t really engage with the criticisms of the Standards Committee offered on this site and it is instructive to see the differences. Regardless the Standards Committee is now gone and what should follow is the abolition of the business vote and the court of aldermen.

Further City Of London Failures On Planning & Governance

As anyone familiar with the City of London Corporation knows, the reasons given for a particular proposal are not necessarily the real ones. The reasons given for the planning panels proposal by its supporters are easily rebutted since they will increase bureaucracy and decrease democratic accountability. The real reason for the proposal is to enable the Corporation’s leadership to consolidate its power by tightening its grip on the planning process. The leadership and its supporters evidently regard the promotion of the Corporation’s interests and those of office developers as articles of faith, and treat the Planning Committee as a rubber stamp in pursuing those interests. The repeated criticism which the Corporation has received internally and, increasingly, externally seems to have concerned the leadership enough to propose introducing panels in order to lessen this unwelcome scrutiny and the embarrassment caused by it. This real reason isn’t a good one.

City of London warned over corruption threat in development deals

Three days ago The Telegraph ran a story about Transparency International warning the City Corporation about corruption issues and as usual this media outlet didn’t directly rebut the absurd refutation it carried from the City of London lie machine: “The corporation said it was not consulted for the report and it ‘strongly refutes any allegation of lack of transparency in our processes… We remain a leading authority in terms of our outputs and governance, working alongside regional and national government and reputable institutions as we undertake scrupulous advice on applications and decisions’.” A considerable number of governance issues were raised in the Rogers Report commissioned by this local authority and of course the blog you’re reading emerged from conflict of interest matters related to Taylor Wimpey being granted planning permission to build The Denizen AKA Clarendon Court by the City of London. Despite being aired in the national press, years later these issues haven’t yet been resolved.

On The City Of London Council’s Artwashing & Its Authoritarian Friends

A recent article in City Matters on a sound and light installation in a deserted Leadenhall Market for only one month reveals the chasm that exists between the City Corporation and the real world. This display can only lawfully be seen by a small number of people who live in or near the City while they take exercise. City residents might be puzzled by the Corporation spending any resources, even just some officer time, on this strange project when there are so many more important things it could do for their benefit. The seven members who joined the Community and Children’s Services Committee en bloc last month will soon find that whenever it’s proposed that even a modest amount be spent for the benefit of City residents, the usual answer is that there’s no budget. But if the financial City wants something promoted, the Corporation dips into its other pocket and produces millions.

Right-wing media float idea of forced participation in City of London’s broken election system

While we and others were less than impressed that the Rogers Report failed to properly confront the issue of the business vote, it was curious to see the Daily Telegraph yesterday using this source to take a very different angle on the matter of a lack of democracy in the City of London. We assume the idea of forcing firms to participate in the business vote charade is being floated in the right-wing press to gauge reaction and determine if anyone wants to be conned into believing this will make a failed electoral system somehow more ‘democratic’. What would actually make the City of London democratic is the abolition of the business vote, so that residents have a proper say on local matters that impact them. That said, forced participation in undemocratic City elections is in no way guaranteed to favour the current establishment and has the potential to replace the status quo with something slightly different – although whether this would be mildly better or somewhat worse than today’s McGuinness/Russell axis is a moot point. What is clear is that it wouldn’t be democratic.

Graeme Harrower On Council Governance & William Russell Wooing Kazakhstan’s Authoritarian Regime

The Lord Mayor of London William Russell is yet again making a tyrannical regime look respectable and feel comfortable. Perhaps Russell will foster close relations with Kazakhstan by advising it on things that the council he heads does but the regime doesn’t yet. For example how to: postpone elections instead of holding them, thus avoiding bad publicity for the elections being undemocratic; use medieval laws to give a veneer of legality to whatever the regime wants to do; introduce a business voting system to ensure that the electorate is tiny and disengaged, and that the system attracts mainly members who enjoy the privileges of office and support whatever the leadership does.

Graeme Harrower On The Rogers Report And Postponed Local Elections

Lord Lisvane uses his unbelievably uncritical report on governance at the City of London council to tout for further business by offering to redraft the Court’s standing orders (para 147) and providing future assistance (para 551). But the message sent through the response of many councillors – who mostly don’t like his suggestions of very mild reforms – is “don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Imagine the stink if Lisvane had suggested abolishing the undemocratic business vote! A freedom of Information request has revealed that his report cost the Corporation £15,000. No wonder he’d welcome some more work!

Rogers Report On City Governance Says Our Council is ‘Sclerotic’, We’d Call It Toxic

Abolition would actually be the best way to deal with the City of London, but even if that does not happen the business vote must be abolished and the number of councillors reduced in line with councillor-resident ratios in the rest of London. Around two councillors, down from 125 (100 common councillors plus 25 aldermen), would make things proportionate – although two councillors does not really justify the existence of a City of London council. On the basis of the figures Rogers reproduces in his report it is clear that City of London councillors need only a handful of votes to get elected and even Rogers admits the system can be easily manipulated by small cliques. This isn’t democracy, it is a sham and the reason why the City of London has quite rightly acquired the nickname the last rotten borough.

City of London Unlikely To Reform Itself In Any Meaningful Way

At the beginning of this month we reposted a report by Rachel Millard from the Telegraph about Robert Rogers AKA Lord Lisvane being commissioned by the City of London Corporation to launch a review into how this local authority runs itself. We pointed out that rather than being an independent party, Rogers is a City insider who belongs to The Worshipful Company of Skinners, something missing from the Telegraph report we reposted a few weeks ago. On 11 February Rachel Millard followed up her initial piece with a longer account of what’s going on, and this time she mentioned Rogers’ livery company membership.

RECLAIM EC1

No To Business Votes, Yes To Democracy!

Lord Lisvane