City of London Council Debates Black Cabs At Bank Junction: Shravan Joshi Does A U Turn – Keith Bottomley, James Thomson & Michael Snyder Make Misleading Statements

In the full meeting of the City of London council on 20/6/24, the moral bankruptcy of this tawdry institution was fully exposed to the public, with political U turns, contraventions of standing orders, officers’ partiality, elected members’ irrational and misleading statements and masonic influence.

Mason Edward Goodchild, Clockwork Liveryman Jani Levanen, Plastic Man Gerard O’Sullivan & Barrister David Williams Stand In Farringdon Within City Council By-Election

On the same day as the national election in the UK on 4 July 2024, there is a local council by-election in the City of London’s Farringdon Within ward. Below we provide a rundown of the four candidates – Edward Goodchild, Jani Levanen, Gerard O’Sullivan and David Williams. All are standing as ‘independents’. There is […]

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.

Sue Pearson Retires As Cripplegate Alder & Endorses Liz King To Succeed Her

Sue Pearson will stand down as the alder of Cripplegate ward in the City of London in early July 2024 due to reaching the mandatory retirement age. She is endorsing her friend and colleague, councillor Liz King, to succeed her. In this piece we pay tribute to what Sue has achieved in her seven years on the City council.

City Of London Corporation Leader, Chris Hayward, Tries & Fails To Defend The Council’s Lack Of Democracy, Masonic Influence & Appeasement Of Repressive Regimes

Anyone seeking a true understanding of the City of London council should watch the disastrous performance of its leader, Chris Hayward, in the question session of the full council meeting in April 2024. He tried and failed to defend the council’s lack of democracy, masonic influence and appeasement of repressive regimes. In doing so, he revealed for all to see his grubby tactics of gaslighting, evasion and smears. Ian Thomas, the Town Clerk, was again exposed as doing Hayward’s bidding instead of his highly paid job when he refused to allow a question to be put to Hayward on the ground that the 40 minute limit for questions had been reached when the council’s own recording shows that it hadn’t.

The National Press On How The Chinese Property Crisis Could Rock The City Of London’s Foundations

We know that a fair number of the readers of this blog both come from and/or support our local authority’s Guildhall establishment, whereas others hold progressive views on the democratic reform of the City of London council – which may begin with the abolition of the business vote, but by no means ends there. Having, then, to take account of readers who are both attentive and diversely influential, we would guess that a good half of them have already read the story about the impact of the Chinese property crisis on the City of London carried by The Times earlier this month. Since this piece is of relevance to the arguments around the redevelopment/repurposing of London Wall West, we thought we’d reproduce it here for the benefit of our supporters who don’t read the right-wing press – and therefore may have missed it.

City Of London Council Leaders Face Rare Dissent Over Plan To Award Themselves Substantial Extra Allowances

The plan of the leaders of the City of London council to award themselves substantial extra allowances has faced rare dissent from generally compliant elected members. An internal consultation has revealed that “diversity” is viewed as cynical cover for advancing the leaders’ agenda, the Town Clerk has become the leaders’ mouthpiece and adopts passive-aggressive tactics towards members who disagree with them, and even a masonic member admits that the masonic presence in the council has caused a lot of problems. We predict, however, that the leaders will still try to push through a revised proposal that gets those at the top most of what they want by way of extra allowances.

Masonic City of London Council Tries To Whitewash Its Members’ Behaviour

Anyone familiar with the workings of the City of London council will recognise that an “independent” review of its members’ behaviour is following a familiar trajectory. A serious issue is first addressed in a “light touch” review by a friendly reviewer, who produces an inadequate report that downplays the seriousness of the issue. The reviewer has, though, not downplayed it quite enough for the ruling clique, who are the source of the issue, so mention in the report of masonic influence and a few negative comments need to be filtered out through a series of meetings by members who know that drawing attention to the twin elephants in the room (masonic influence and bullying, particularly of women) will result in their being trampled by those same elephants. By the time the matter reaches the full council for approval, it will have been reduced to a set of anodyne recommendations about things like training and induction. At some stage, the original report may be quietly published, or maybe its publication will be quietly forgotten about – the latter being preferable, in case the media picks up on the little in it that hints at something serious. That bureaucratic series of card tricks works, as long as the audience doesn’t know how the tricks are done. Problems for the ruling clique are that this website explains how they’re done, and it has an increasing readership among those interested in the City council. Another problem is that in this case a journalist got access to the report and published all the newsworthy bits which the clique wanted to filter out, and which are pointers to the much bigger reality that is documented in many posts on this website.

Councillor Ann Holmes humiliated on International Women’s Day in Masonic Influenced City of London Council

When Councillor Ann Holmes recently put a motion to the full City of London council, Chris Hayward, the Chair of Policy (= leader of the council), and his ruling clique opposed it. They were comfortable with another councillor weaponising procedure to reject her motion without debate. Some members of the council remarked after the meeting how awful it looked for a bunch of members who were all masons to humiliate a prominent woman in such a public way on International Women’s Day. While those optics would have been important to a normal politician, Hayward and his clique care little for external opinion, and as masons that would be intuitive. Women aren’t eligible to join them, so who cares what they think? Ian Thomas, the Town Clerk, also came out of this matter badly for not knowing procedure for and serving the clique rather than all the members.

Uncontested Re-Election Of Nick Lyons As Tower Ward Senior Councillor Is A Classic Example Of City Of London Rotten Borough Ballot Rigging

The undersized electorate, the disinterest of business voters and the fact that the City’s civic structure is a law unto itself and therefore difficult for outsiders to understand, all contribute to creating a crony culture where election rigging is considered a normal political practice. This is a system under which it is often difficult for critics of the political status quo to even get nominated in business wards – and where single large businesses like Bloomberg can decide the fate of elections that see candidates win with no more than double-digit voter support. Little surprise then that when the nominations for Tower were announced last week, incumbent Nick Lyons was the only candidate in an election that was as clearly rigged as the anti-democratic farces that made him first a sheriff and then a lord mayor.

RECLAIM EC1

No To Business Votes, Yes To Democracy!

Martha Grekos