16 March 2017
Vote Early
Elections in the City
by J.R.Thomas
Next Thursday sees an exciting voting opportunity, one of those times when a whole assembly is up for election at the same time, and thus, in these exciting and rumbustious times, there is the possibility of a major upset. One hundred and twenty five seats are up for grabs and the eager candidates are busy issuing their manifesto’s, pounding the pavements, shaking hands, and kissing babies, hoping to become the chosen one for a four or six year term.
Except most of them are not. Not kissing babies for sure, or even pounding pavements. Some have not even troubled their electorate with an electoral address. They don’t need to, as in many wards the number of candidates equals the number of seats. So where can this oddly undemocratic exercise in democracy be taking place? Myanmar perhaps, or some remote former Soviet republic; or some South American semi dictatorship? No; the word “ward” might just have given it away. On 23rd March the City of London goes to the polls to select 100 Common Councilmen and 25 Alderman who will run, at least in theory, the Square Mile – and various other mostly rather greener bits of Greater London (Highgate Woods and Epping Forest) for the next four or six years. The City is of course the centre of financial services for Britain, and, at least for now, for Europe. Indeed, it is probably true to say that the City has become, over the last thirty years or so, the financial services centre of the world, taking on that role from New York, and seeing off the one-time aspirations of Hong Kong and the dreams of Frankfurt.
The City worries about keeping this pre-eminence and so does the British Government, pondering the 14% or so of UK tax revenues which are said to arise in the City – those overpaid bankers turn out to be useful for something after all. The City has about 450,000 people working in it – nearly double what there were in the 1970’s, though that is difficult to believe with the amount of buildings under construction or reconstruction at the moment. There are of course many other workers in financial services who are all part of the abstract concept of “the City” – from those Ferrari driving types in St James’s Square working in hedge funds, to the more humble Mondeo drivers toiling in the clearing bank money factories in Canary Wharf – but they do not get to vote for Common Councilmen.
And neither in reality do most of those who work in the glass and steel City towers. There are of course very few residents in the City; about seven thousand, nearly all living in and around the Barbican and Golden Lane high rise estates – Cripplegate and Aldersgate Wards in City electoral speak. Historically the City was a mixture of residential and working accommodation (a certain William Shakespeare lived and carried on his trade in Cripplegate Ward), but after the Great Fire in 1666 it gradually evolved into a business only area. In spite of this, or maybe because of it, the City became the last unreformed local borough in Britain, a county in its own right, with a voting system with both residential and business electorates. Attempts were made to abolish the Corporation in the nineteenth century, without success. After the Second World War the City was said to have no inhabitants (other than a few night watchmen) and its anomalous position – a rich borough entirely controlled by a handful of business voters – created a surge for reform. The Attlee Labour government would undoubtedly have abolished it, if there had been time, and it was this threat that led to the construction of the Golden Lane and Barbican estates, so that the City Corporation could argue that it had residential voters – albeit in only two wards out of twenty five, and with many of the inhabitants employed not just in the City, but by the Corporation itself.
The Blair government brought pressure for reform of the City voting system (the business vote had been abolished everywhere else in 1969) and the business vote was extended from property and business owners to allow the creation of voting councils for all City firms by giving each business a number of votes. Theoretically City employers could poll their employees as to whom the corporate vote should go to – a sort of US Presidential electoral college. It has to be said, this is largely theoretical…
The reforms did not do away with such anomalies as the lack of residential qualification for becoming Common Councilmen or Aldermen – leading to the bizarre situation that many of these splendidly titled grandees do not live in the City and cannot vote for themselves. The ceremonial of City life, even the chance of progressing towards a ride in the golden coach and a year living in the Mansion House, does not appeal to many who work in the City, who are after all, there to make money, not to play politics. Although there was a great burst of aldermanic energy in the 1950’s – with a great one hundred year plan to rebuild the City with a level higher vehicle free people zone, and with transport and servicing left on the ground (the Barbican being the one remaining element), that energy seems long gone. The City is run by its paid executives and the one hundred and twenty five representatives of the people are largely invisible – though they would claim, and those few that issue election material, do, that there is much committee work behind the scenes managing the executives. But few of the seats are contested and practically all the candidates claim to be “Independent” – so none of the electors really know what they are voting for. They may be able to guess though. The Labour Party is the only political party which does put up a slate of candidates, a small slate, more of a tile, with a Labour Councillor elected last time; there was much grumbling among his fellow Common Councilmen that this was destroying the ethos of how the City is run. This time it seems possible that the Labour Party representation may be doubled or more – one Labour candidate is already in as Aldersgate ward was uncontested, and another one or two may get in for the other residential ward, Cripplegate. At last, something for Mr Corbyn to brag about; though somehow, one doubts that he will.
The City governance has been described in various ways, none of them terribly complementary – “the last rotten borough”, “a remant of medieval local government”, and perhaps most cuttingly, “a property company with a social services department attached”. (This is not strictly speaking true – the social services functions are mostly hived off to neighbouring boroughs.) It is a remarkable survival and the only reason it still exists is that it seems to have worked; the City functions relatively efficiently and the Square Mile has adapted to changing work patterns and the demands of competition – though the building of Canary Wharf caught it on the hop. But modern communications and work practices have undermined its physical justification – when you can work anywhere, why work in the most congested and expensive location? Brexit will create a whole new raft of threats that may or may not be opportunities; and fashions may do the same – the rising generation of entrepreneurs would, bizarrely to old City hands, prefer to be in Shoreditch than Cheapside.
These are times that demand a blaze of innovation and a dash of originality from civic leaders – as has been seen in Manchester and Birmingham – but it is very hard to spot that among those one hundred twenty five about to resume their medieval robes and roles. Radical reform or abolition of the City Corporation would be a very easy target for some future government anxious to score an easy win. This may turn out not to be a radical allotment holder from North Islington but a determined crusading lady with an urge to burnish her credentials among the struggling folk of middle England. So if you have a vote in the City, cast it whilst you can.
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