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Snyder is the driving force behind the vanity project putting the greatest strain on the capital budget, the Justice Quarter, and was also very much a mentor to current council boss Chris Hayward – both because he previously held Hayward’s civic role and within freemasonry, where it seems Snyder’s prominence may have assisted Hayward’s rapid rise up the ranks of the the brotherhood.
Michael Snyder (left) and Chris Hayward (centre left with hand to face) indulging in masonic cosplay. Hayward has risen to top positions in both English freemasonry and the City of London council since coming into the orbit of Michael Snyder.
Snyder has seen his authority eroded at the council due to a number of factors including his major role in pushing forward the budget busting Justice Quarter vanity project. His diminishing power is also connected to Bloomberg establishing a huge office in his Cordwainer ward base. The Bloomberg effect has resulted in Snyder having little choice but to endorse candidates with Bloomberg business vote backing if he wishes to remain in office under the City’s undemocratic system. Another matter undermining Snyder’s standing is Craig Donaldson and David Arden being publicly rapped on the knuckles by the Financial Conduct Authority over Metro Bank’s breach of listing rules and £10M fine earlier this month. Snyder’s top role at the Metro Bank at the time this scandal took place is well known and press coverage of the matter is not exactly enhancing his reputation at the City of London Corporation – even if his name is not explicitly mentioned in media stories about it.
Another former leader of the City of London council who’s had a less than great year is Mark Boleat. This former policy chair retired from City politics to focus on affairs of state in his native Jersey, where in the summer he failed to get elected after the less than democratic system on the island underwent mild reforms. Like the City of London, historically Jersey’s politics was partyless – with all politicians being elected and governing as ‘independents’. Growing dissatisfaction with the opaqueness and difficulty of keeping track of so many ‘independents’ has resulted in a new multi-party system – with Boleat leading the right-wing Jersey Alliance. ITV reported Boleat’s electoral annihilation this way:
The leader of the Jersey Alliance says he is “disappointed” with the result of the election and accepts the party failed in their bid to win over the electorate.
Sir Mark Boleat failed to secure enough votes to win a seat in St Clement on a dismal night for the party, which saw them return just one of their 14 candidates to the States….
Reflecting on the results, Mark Boleat said there had been a clear “dislike of political parties” amongst voters, despite Reform Jersey performing well.
Jersey Alliance Leader Reflects On Dismal Night For The Party by Anon, ITV, 23 June 2022. See the original piece here.
Our view is that Boleat is better at making poor excuses for himself than analysis (certainly true when he was a City politician). His personal failure and his party’s rout appears to be down to voters being wise to their politics and issues such as the electorate perceiving the likes of Carolyn Dwyer to be Boleat cronies. Dwyer is a former director of the built environment for the City of London who got a cushy job at the Jersey Development Corporation (Boleat is a former chair) with eye-watering renumeration for 15 days work. Her appointment and pay became part of the row over a failure to increase the minimum wage in the crown dependancy and tax haven from £8.32 to £10. See Backbencher criticises NED’s £22K Pay Packet by Charley-Kai John in the Jersey Evening Post, 5 May 2021.
Last month we noted that another former council leader, Michael Cassidy, didn’t appear to have made a success of his time at Ebbsfleet Development Corporation in terms of delivering homes (which is what the appointment was about). Cassidy’s recent strident interventions in council meetings appear to be part of an ill-thought through strategy to regain standing in local City politics after what we view as one of multiple failures on his part.
Moving on, Luis Tilleria is a lesser figure at the council than these former ‘leaders’ but he hasn’t done well since being elected to the Corporation in March. Public perception of him has been negative – both in London and his native Ecuador – with the media drawing attention to the fact he has been fined as a ‘rogue landlord’. Likewise, Tilleria’s associates and cronies haven’t been doing well in local City elections either.
We’re still wondering if Tilleria using PW Capital, of which he is sole director, to invest in Voces Broadcasting Corporation Limited (Company number 12590494) was done as an attempt at buying better media coverage? This company’s statement of incorporation includes Tilleria’s PW Capital as a shareholder and Companies House currently lists the nature of its business as ‘television programming and broadcasting activities’.
Considerably more puzzling is the case of the London Beijing Trading Corporation Limited (company number 11441401), which is owned by PW Capital. Incorporation of the company took place on 29 June 2018 when Tilleria was still an undischarged bankrupt. Until 17 June 2021 the company was named Migrants Broadcasting Corporation Limited and the nature of its business is still listed as ‘video distribution activities’.
It isn’t clear to us if Tilleria had the bankruptcy court’s permission to continue as a director at PW Capital while undischarged, and even if he did, if they would have approved of him using it as the vehicle to set up a further company. These matters are something we feel should be investigated as a matter of urgency by various authorities. Those who should be making inquiries of this type include the City of London council since the question marks hanging over Tilleria in relation to this matter appears to be causing reputational damage in relationship to Tilleria’s role as a member of the planning committee.
Since we posted about the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL), it has become apparent that some councillors recognise how it is being deployed doesn’t look good. This can be seen from its febrile discussion during the public part of the resource allocation sub-committee meeting of 1 December 2022, just a week after we covered the matter. Our focus was on property developers’ lobby group the City Property Association receiving CIL money and although we noticed it, we didn’t comment on the utterly disproportionate amount of funding going to protestant (CoE) churches. This was brought up during the meeting with an emphasis on the number of Wren churches receiving CIL money.
What wasn’t addressed in the public part of this meeting is Wren’s investments in the slave trade. In our view, if Wren churches are to receive CIL funding then it should be under the condition that signage critically addressing Wren’s role in the black holocaust is also installed. Likewise, many of Wren’s ecclesiastical buildings – from St Paul’s Cathedral on down – contain memorials to those involved in the slave trade and other colonial crimes. This is something that should be properly addressed regardless of whether or not they receive CIL funds. That said, and as our post on CIL should have made clear, there are far better uses for these funds than giving money to churches.
If council leader Chris Hayward had been able to attend the 1 December 2022 resource allocation sub-committee meeting – he sent apologies – our assumption is it would have been even more heated. Hayward’s bombastic oratory was on full display at the last full council meeting held on 8 December 2022 at the Guildhall (from 9.03). He follows on from lord mayor Nick Lyons (from 3.01) who reports on activities such as hosting a lavish banquet for South African president Cyril Ramaphosa – whose visit to the City was rather overshadowed by the media storm over the corruption scandal he’s been embroiled in.
What is striking about the 8 December council meeting is the uneasy way the roles of the lord mayor and policy chair (both council leaders) overlap. This is made particularly glaring by Hayward sounding to us as if he thinks he should be representing the financial City globally without the lord mayor cramping his ‘style’. That said, both roles consist mostly of spin and in our view the offices these men hold should be abolished since they are historical anachronisms.
The square mile no longer has sufficient residents to justify a local authority covering just this area. The civic functions of the City of London should be merged into one or more of the neighbouring boroughs. The Guildhall meeting on 8 December looked nothing like what you’d expect from any other UK local authority and the global pretensions of its leaders are frankly absurd. Local residents are very poorly served by this charade, while most of those who work in the financial City think the lord mayor is a cosplay irrelevance and have never heard of the policy chair.*
The fact that Hayward is more interested in globe trotting and attending receptions with lavish hospitality than the problems of those who actually live in the City -as well as London more broadly – is evident from his earlier speech and then his reply to Cripplegate alderwoman Sue Pearson, after she backs a motion put forward by Steve Goodman for broader free school meal provision. Hayward says (1.00 on this video):
The immediate response that comes to mind is how far one widens the net and how much responsibility financially we are expected to take on and I think we have to focus on those children under our direct responsibility both in schools in the city and academies… and it must be for those who have the responsibility, a wider responsibility for other London schools, to deal with that particular matter.
It should be noted there is only one primary school in the City and while the council runs some academies, these are located in neighbouring boroughs, not the City itself. Many City children attend non-City schools that are located nearer to their homes than the council run institutions.
That said, while Hayward doesn’t want to spend money on food for local children who are going to school hungry, his answer to Martha Grekos about the Golden Key one day City promotional event on 15 October 2022, shows he is not afraid to splash the cash when it comes to PR and reputation washing (the City’s civic structure is so desperately in need of democratic reform that some refer to it as ‘the last rotten borough‘). Hayward states (from 6.58 on this link): “The Corporation spent around £400,000 on the artistic production and an additional £240,000 on marketing, and £295,000 on event management.”**
It isn’t just children who are going hungry in the City, the tweet above from the end of last month is about the City of London Police (run by the City of London council) and how its federation has members who are short of food. Likewise City of London employees at places such as the Barbican Arts Centre aren’t happy with their rates of pay or working conditions. Given this, the money spent on the Golden Key event and on lavish hospitality by the council is obscene.
Hayward’s defence of the outrageously poor value for money the Golden Key event represents was absurd but it fits into a long standing pattern of council vanity spending and rhetoric. What really puzzled some of those following City of London council politics recently were Hayward’s antics at the policy & resources committee meeting of 15 December 2022. This meeting saw the awarding of Asset of Community Value (ACV) status to Simpsons Tavern but not St Brides Tavern, offering the former some protection from developers but not the latter (if an approved application is shelved and a new one were to be put in). Simpsons Tavern came under item 5 and the town clerk introduces this at 22.50 on the live stream of the meeting. St Brides Tavern came under item 6 and is introduced by the town clerk at 24.43 on the video recording.
Castle Baynard councillor Martha Grekos worked hard to get St Bride’s Tavern designated as an ACV. The officers recommended both it and Simpson’s Tavern for ACV designation. Hayward led the committee in unanimously accepting the officers’ recommendation for the designation of Simpson’s Tavern (which is not threatened with demolition, although it has been forced to close due to rent demands from the landlord), and in rejecting by a majority the officers’ recommendation for the designation of St Bride’s Tavern (which is threatened with demolition).
Explicit references were made in the committee discussion to St Bride’s Tavern being located on the site of a new development. Hayward and a majority of the committee voted in a way that would have been pleasing to the developer. Hayward let planning chair Shravan Joshi follow his lead in speaking against designation at the start of the discussion, but wouldn’t let him speak again during it, ostensibly because Joshi was on the planning committee – but did Joshi, as the chair of that committee, really need looking after in this way? Hayward also wouldn’t let Joshi speak at the end of the discussion when he tried to. Joshi was obviously on the same page as Hayward, so some might wonder if the latter restricted the former’s participation in order to maximise the credit he’d get from the developer for his opposition to the designation.
Rumour has it that both Hayward and Joshi are looking for more consultancy work. Pleasing developers might be seen as a step toward that and even if neither man took the line they did to gain favour with a potential employer, unresolved conflict of interest questions that have been swirling around Hayward for years mean some are likely to read what we’ve just gone over that way. Although he’s also in Michael Snyder’s orbit, Joshi is very much Hayward’s junior both on the council and in the brotherhood. Time will tell if Hayward is cutting ties with Snyder now that the older man’s influence is waining. We understand that Hayward has a much larger office than his predecessors – including Snyder – at the Guildhall, and a dedicated staff.
‘Sir’ Michael Snyder (centre) and fellow City of London councillor and freemason Shravan Joshi who currently chairs the planning committee (right).
Notes
*The financial City can easily afford to cover the costs of the global lobbying the City of London council carries out on its behalf. while the money wasted on this pursuit by our local authority could make a massive difference to the lives of City residents – and in particular those living in poverty – if it was instead spent on things such as decades overdue housing estate repairs. For example, replacing ill-fitting single glazed windows on the Golden Lane Estate – something promised 35 years ago but not yet fully carried through – would help lift some residents out of fuel poverty.
**Hayward reports the event attracted 30,000 visitors which means that more than £30 was spent on attracting each individual who came – and the cost may more than double if policing is added to the figure. Grekos suggests in her question that local businesses gained nothing from the Golden Key event and the council paid for pop ups (presumably catering) in the square mile on the day, and it was these non-local businesses that reaped a financial benefit. The event was aimed at attracting visitors to the City, rather than being for residents – who were inconvenienced by having this shambles on their doorstep. Clearly a huge amount of money is being wasted on vanity projects like the Golden Key event, while essential civic services are starved of cash.
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