Why Do The City of London’s Senior Councillors Exclude The Public From Their Meetings?
The City of London council has yet to evolve from its feudal form and is still divided into three chambers. At the bottom is common hall made up of unelected livery company members who pretty much rubber stamp what the upper chamber tells them to do when electing lord mayors and sheriffs. Then there is the court of common council and an upper chamber called the court of aldermen. The councillors who sit in the courts are ‘elected’ rotten borough style by tiny numbers of people most of whom don’t live in the City – but who under the business vote system are allowed to vote where they work as well as where they live. Obviously this charade is in urgent need of democratic reform and questioning every aspect of the council’s arcane practices can contribute to that – which is what Graeme Harrower, a rare sane voice at the Guildhall, is doing. Here Harrower draws attention to a meeting on 8 December 2020 at which the aldermen will be discussing why they meet in private (and doing so in private).
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