In January 2018, a resident councillor of unimpeachable integrity successfully challenged the City of London Corporation on behalf of her constituents. Two weeks later, the Corporation referred her for prosecution which proved to be entirely groundless, and for two prejudiced hearings by its Standards Committee. The whole process cost tens of thousands of pounds of public money, and resulted in no sanction.

In December 2018, two motions were…

Below is the text of an email I sent today to all members of the Court of Common Council (the City Corporation’s elected governing body) about the proposed postponement of the elections of the City’s 100 councillors from March 2021 to March 2022. 

What little democracy there is in the City shouldn’t be postponed by a year for no good reason. But I expect that the postponement of these elections will receive overwhelming support from members of the Court at its meeting on…

Below is the text of an email that I sent today to all members of the Court of Common Council (the City Corporation’s elected governing body). It covers two subjects.

First, it satirises the lack of democracy in the City Corporation. As 80% of members of the Court of Common Council are elected mainly by tiny numbers of generally uninterested business voters - a system unique to the City - the Corporation cannot claim to be a democratic institution. For background, see…