The City of London which is not part of London (2016) | Hacker News Reader

The City of London which is not part of London (2016)

thevintagenews.com

127 pointskaisix114 comments

> The secret City of London which is not part of London

The City is part of London under any normal person's interpretation of that word. Being as charitable as possible, it is true that the ceremonial county of Greater London does not contain the City. But the Greater London administrative area does.

It's also not "secret". Many people aren't aware of it, but that's through ignorance on their part rather than secrecy on the part of the City. The City plasters its logo all over the place: on all street signs in the City, on police uniforms, on statues, etc. Even the bollards in the City bear the colors of the City's flag. It's impossible not to notice that the City is different from the rest of London.

So that's two mistakes in the headline alone.

> The mayor of Greater London has nothing to do with the original City of London, which still has separate governing bodies and a mayor.

This is wrong. The Mayor of London has authority over the City of London, through the Greater London Authority (although some power is delegated to the Corporation, in the same way it is to borough councils).

There is indeed also a mayor of the City (confusingly called the Lord Mayor of London), but that mayorship is largely ceremonial in nature.

> Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission.

This is just an urban myth, no such permission is required. In fact, the sovereign has precedence over the Lord Mayor (in the context of formal events and such like).

Greater London is made up of 32 London Boroughs and the City of London that provide the vast majority of municipal services. Each has a mayor or Lord Mayor. The powers and responsibilities of London Boroughs, and the local authority responsibilities of the City of London Corporation are set out in statute law, not delegated by the Mayor of London.

The Mayor of London is responsible for public transport, Fire and Rescue Services, major highways, some major town planning issues across the 32 London Boroughs and the City of London, and policing across the 32 London Boroughs. The Mayor of London has no general authority over any of the 33.

Something else that a lot of younger people don't realize is the position "Mayor of London" is only 24 years old. London had no city-wide government between 1985 and 2000, and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.

Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.

The London Mayor and more recently the Manchester Mayor have been huge successes in transport coordination. I don't think many people would a priori say "the best structure for a large city is fifty non-coordinated boroughs". You could make a clearer case for abolishing the boroughs (especially some of the more corrupt and incompetent ones) and running the city as a unitary whole.

The only reason the GLC was abolished in the first place was naked party politics.

> especially some of the more corrupt and incompetent ones

Do you have particular boroughs in mind?

The mayor of Tower Hamlets is one of the few people in the UK to have a conviction for electoral fraud. Somehow this didn't stop him getting elected again.

> and the pre-1985 council didn't have a mayor.

True but it had a council leader.

> Personally I'd enthusiastically vote for a return to the pre-2000 system as it's not at all clear to me what these people do for us or what we gain from giving them all this money.

A failing on your part. About half of it is TFL.

Budget https://www.london.gov.uk/media/100391/download?attachment

Unless different to the rest of the country though, not directly elected (to the leader role), which I assume was the point, since a mayor is.

Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do. (I'm voting Labour - no you're not, you're voting for the Labour candidate in your area. I'm voting for Rishi Sunak - you're almost certainly not, the vast majority of people not being in his constituency. Etc.)

> Mind you, we don't vote for parties to govern or which member to lead them (and it needn't be an MP) either, but it doesn't stop people talking like we do.

You are technically correct, but those pesky people are onto something. In practice people that voted for Boris Johnson in 2019 did not vote for Liz Truss or Rishi Sunak, yet still were governed by them.

You are voting for a candidate, but their party might decide the next pm with the input of their members only.

The pre-2000 system happened because Thatcher didn't like having a London government that represented the views of London voters, which was far more left wing.

That it what it gives us: Representation in a region more populous than most countries which is politically often poorly aligned with the national government.

The 1985 power-grab by Thatcher was deeply anti-democratic.

regional coordination of services like transport is the big one. as a general example, if it were just the councils, Crossrail probably would not have gotten off the ground. And TfL is probably the only authority bucking the general British trend of bus services totally collapsing.

Fun fact: Brussels has the exact same structure, with a “Brussels City” smaller than “Brussels Capital Region”, different mayors for different boroughs etc.

CGP Grey has a delightful video explaining this:

"The Secret City inside of London Revealed" (2012) https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc

Highly recommended.

I am pretty sure that the CGP Grey video was the core inspiration for this article. Nearly every image in the article was featured in the YouTube video, which predates the article by ~4 years.

CPG Grey's videos re the City are a bit of fun that he slapped together in two or three days, not documentaries.

“Documentaries” on YouTube and not the best. Most of the time the images and background isn’t even the specific topic of discussion. For example, showing the wrong plane or car when the video is specifically about a certain fighter jet or war.

It made me realize the larger studios and productions have access to lots of accurate “fluff” like historical reels. They even have budgets to take real crews to locations. Makes me rethink the amount of time I spend on YouTube.

I consider "posted on YouTube" the same as "posted on the Internet". Youtube is basically a comm channel, they don't vet for accuracy nor do they claim to.

Look instead at the channel. Some channels make serious efforts to cite their sources and justify their claims; others do not. It's hard, but where you can, try to prefer the first.

I used to live in the City of London at the top end of Chancery Lane. I could therefore be in a different city (City of Westminster) by crossing the street to the west and leave the city entirely by crossing to the north (London Borough of Camden).

I used to live pretty close to the eastern end of the City in Aldgate/Whitechapel. It was pretty cool to go running and cycling around the City during the pandemic lockdowns, with almost no people or cars around.

Same with central London: I remember cycling though a completely deserted Leicester Square one day and hearing nothing but birds chirping in the trees!

During lockdown most hotels were closed, I ended up staying near Blackfriars and riding my Brompton to the west end. Very peaceful without so many taxis and vans and even it seemed fewer buses.

But then the city is hardly bustling on a Sunday either.

I walked through the City as a tourist one Sunday, and didn't realize I couldn't get any kind of lunch at all until I was past it.

(We were recreating Elizabeth I's procession from the Tower to Westminster, which passes through what is now The City.)

I think we ate the dreadful TESCO sandwiches in the City, near the hall when we visited. Almost no cars.

I lived in Chancery Lane in around 1998/1999. Weekends were eerily quiet and getting groceries was a nuisance.

Also I remember loafing around my flat watching the news about some May Day protests in London and when I turned the TV off I realised I could... hear the protesters. They were over on Fleet Street another very short walk away!

Did you get to vote in the Court of Aldermen elections? If so, are they much different to local elections in the rest of the country?

It was a quarter century ago (!) but... as far as I can remember I never voted in that election and I'm not sure if I was eligible. Perhaps I was but didn't know it?

I do remember that my Council Tax was ridiculously cheap!

For me, the wildest fact about the City of London (the small, walled part), is that when the Romans left, some buildings were smashed up, but the roads and walls remained, and then the whole area was abandoned... for 470 years.

But besides the buildings, walls and the roads, "what did the Romans ever do for US?"

Also some pretty interesting tax and voting rules there ... Corporations get a vote, pretty much meaning they run the place.

https://www.thecollector.com/what-makes-the-city-of-london-u...

There's a good book called "treasure islands" all about tax havens... The city definitely features.

And it has the fewest residents of any London borough by a couple of orders of magnitude. So it probably makes sense that businesses have a bit more say.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/381055/london-population...

City of London Ward Lists consist of c19,000 individuals, who have one vote each.

Corporations voting = urban myth

Some of those individuals are not residents but expressly included as nominees of their businesses, a form of franchise that exists nowhere else in the UK.

It's true that the vote is exercised by the company's nominee, not the company itself, but that's only because the company itself can't show up at the polling station. Business voters are expressly included to represent their organisations[0], and do.

[0]: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/voting-elections/bu...

"In fact, the City of London is so independent that it has its own flag, crest, police force, ceremonial armed forces, and a mayor who has a special title, the Right Honorable, the Lord Mayor of London. Oddly enough, if the monarch wants to enter the City of London, she first must ask the Lord Mayor for permission"

Are there some books that comprehensively cover several aspects around the City of London?

The City of London appeared quite often in Lee Kwan Yu's memoirs

Fact checking : the monarch does not have to ask permission to enter the City.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=City_of_London_...

That makes much of the sword part of the ceremony, but surely it's the "red cord raised by City police" that signifies some self-authority -- what other part of the country may purposefully and physically stop the monarch and receive no investigation or punishment?

> The City of London appeared quite often in Lee Kwan Yu's memoirs

Interesting - was it an inspiration for Singapore's governance as a city-state?

He was made a "Freeman" by the City of London.

He also hinted that Singapore's set-up as a good destination for finance was modeled after the City of London

Anybody, or anything, can have its own flag in England.

Yes, although there is a meaningful distinction of those which are registered under the https://www.college-of-arms.gov.uk/ or not.

Now I have to wonder is there a place where this is not true?

Of course anything can have its own flag. That’s how the British stole entire countries /s

https://youtu.be/hYeFcSq7Mxg

The City of London certainly has its own coat of arms. Phrasing that as "its own crest" is a bit weird. (The crest is only part, and by no means the most important part, of a heraldic achievement. The escutcheon is the important bit.)

Arms: Argent a cross gules, in the first quarter a sword in pale point upwards of the last.

Crest: On a wreath argent and gules a dragon's sinister wing argent charged on the underside with a cross throughout gules.

Supporters: On either side a dragon argent charged on the undersides of the wings with a cross throughout gules.

Yes. And local authorities in the UK routinely have grants of arms and banners/flags of them (albeit most of them are newer and less classy than the City's).

Ditto police forces: although most smaller authorities' police have merged into larger county or larger forces, there's nothing odd in principle about a municipal police force. The City's is strange, in that it's entirely enclaved within the Met, but there are plenty of oddities out there (the Mersey Tunnels Police, say).

There are several ancient cities with 'Lord' mayors, including York.

Interesting anecdote: the city of Baltimore, MD, USA is administratively distinct from the County of Baltimore, MD. The area is collectively referred to as Baltimore, but the county has no jurisdiction within the city. [1]

https://www.greektownbaltimore.org/what-the-difference-betwe...

Yes, and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, home of the Indianapolis 500, is located in Speedway, Indiana, which has its own local government and police force, in spite of the fact that it is both surrounded by Indianapolis and entirely contained within Marion County, whose government, aside from a few exceptions like Speedway, is entirely consolidated with the government of the city of Indianapolis[1].

Local government can be complicated.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unigov

Many states have a similar code, all of Maryland might. There are lots of pockets of sovereignty in the US that are misunderstood.

Basically the default behavior is that the state is a bigger government than the county and overrides everything, county bigger than city, city bigger than something smaller.

But non-default behavior is codified to make it the reverse.

Either its directly codified in state law or state constitution, or there is a symbioses for the state to maintain collective support and order.

Rules for rulers applies here.

Unusually, the county of New York (coextensive with Manhattan) is only 1 of 5 counties inside the city of New York (which of course inside the state of New York).

The FT did a recent - and very good - expose with more on how the city works in “Undemocratic, anachronistic, fantastic. How the City of London survives” [1] Paywalled but accessible via Google.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/2b96763f-5cb2-475b-b20c-7c2d02050...

https://archive.is/Hgz5j

I was hoping it would be Oscar-nominated “Passport to Pimlico” (Ealing Studios, 1949).

A person I know reasonably well is currently the Lord Mayor of London.

I suspect I could get him to do an AMA here if people would like to hear more about the City and its fascinating ways.

Seriously, we could actually do this!

Michael is a terrifically interesting fellow even if you ignore his role as Lord Mayor.

Absolutely! He’s a Star!

The City of London is sort of a lobbying organization for the UK financial community. Or at least it thinks it is.[1] Its police force is not ceremonial - there's a sizable Economic Crime Directorate, handling fraud cases. They claim a 75% clearing rate.

[1] https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/about-us/plans-policies/our-...

City of London is a separate legal entity to England but still under the king. Hence all the banking industry is located there, to add another step in the money train to tax heavens.

> City of London is a separate legal entity to England but still under the king

Not true. You're probably thinking of something like the Isle of Mann, or the Channel Islands, or arguably all of Canada or Australia.

The City of London is part of England.

This isn't meaningfully true: it's still subject to UK tax law and the law of England&Wales in general.

The Channel Islands and Man do fit that description and are not subject to English tax law.

Some beautiful old Roman buildings around near Threadneedle. There always seems to be some construction work going on around there though.

Unfortunately modern buildings in the city are designed for a 30 year lifespan, so there is always one being demolished and replaced.

The city within a city inside of a country inside of a country (London, London, England, UK)

I find the City of London (formerly the Corporation for London) to be fascinating for many reasons.

For one, the exact origins are unknown. the earliest record we have is from 1067 CE with the William Charter [1]. William granted the City rights in exchange for not attacking and the City recognizing him as King, which this article sort of mentions. But the interesting part is that William was simply recognizing the rights of something that already existed. For how long? Nobody knows. It's likely somewhere in the 7th or 8th century when Anglo-Saxons resettled the previously abandoned Roman walled city of Londinium after their departure in 410 CE.

It's also fascinating because it's managed to survive for nearly 1000 yaers since then, largely recognizable from its earlier form although there have been various changes and reforms. There have been efforts to disband it too but obviously they failed.

It also survived uncertain times like the Vikings would cojme along every now and again and burn down London Bridge.

London's development as a financial center goes back to 1066 too and a key part was likely due, at least in part, to the arrival of Jews during William's reign [2].

Why was this important? Well, Jews were prohibited from charging interest to other Jews. Muslims and Christians had similar constraints. But an oddity of Judaism was that Jews could charge interest to non-Jews [3]. This later likely contributed to conspiracy theories about Jews (eg blood libel) and antisemitism.

So ancient civil institutions like the Court of Aldermen still exist and certain rights given to the Freemen of the City of London still exist, like the ancient right to bring sheep in to the City over the bridge [4].

[1]: https://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk/things-to-do/history-and-her...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_England...

[3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loans_and_interest_in_Judaism

[4]: https://www.euronews.com/culture/2022/09/27/unbaalievable-sh...

Is there a direct relation or something specific you were going to draw in mentioning the history of the Jews in England and the history and particularities of the City of London? That the Jews performed the interest loans on behalf of and/or within the City of London possibly or something like that?

Jews were historically associated with practices like moneylending largely due to the religious quirks I mentioned.

Go forward a few centuries and you have things like Shakespeare's moneylender from the Merchant of Venice, Shylock. This was no accident. It reveals both the reality of the time and attitudes towards Jews. This was such a powerful literary figure that the word "shylock" entered the lexicon.

Anyway here's another history [1]:

> The Jews came principally from Rouen - a great center of Jewish life in Northern France. It is well known that William brought them over as so called "feudal Jews" to be Royal serfs, the king's own chattels, providing him with financial services and income ...

> Though their principal function was to be money lenders, the London Jews did in reality they did follow a variety of other trades and callings

[1]: http://www.jtrails.org.uk/trails/the-city-of-london/history

I’m probably being overly pedantic but it’s not a secret

I'd go with something more like "secretive" than explicitly "secret". It's a weird & immensely powerful place in the UK, with some abstruse governing structures, hidden entirely in plain sight.

Secretive? As in run by Committees that meet in public with agendas and minutes published on the City's website in accordance with the Local Government Act 1972.

Please. I've read Dan Brown's novels and I know that those are just phony and for confuse the proles. But just how the Priory of Sion is involved is still not clear to me.

That's defensible.

The secret isn't that the city of london has existed for centuries. Articles like this are designed to elicit your response. The secret is to what extent the social-political order in the West determined by the Finance and the extent to which they exercise power over nominally sovereign entities.

Well, it's not now!

p.s. the first rule of London is we don't talk about London...

I'm gonna add that it is not super super well explained why did it stay that way either which was the curious part for me.

I’ve read this exact factoid at least a few hundred times. I’m mostly just amazed that it continues to surprise people.

Obligatory xkcd: 10,000.

I'm glad people are learning a neat new factoid but it really wasn't a secret.

Equally obligatory: link to the xkcd[0][1]

[0]https://xkcd.com/1053/ [1]https://m.xkcd.com/1053/

You get a pass; the title was being overly gratuitous.

Yup. I stopped reading when I got to the bit where they explained that the "secret city" was the City of London. That's tabloid crap.

But it’s such an unexpected power structure in a modern democracy some people don’t really believe it even when told.

They are right to disbelieve.

It's not well known in America. Recent conversations on congestion surcharges in NYC regularly confused the charges in City of London (miniscule) with London as a whole (huge), and then tried to draw the comparison to the now-canceled charges in NYC, which would have affected more than half of Manhattan, and a large portion of the most significant commercial areas of NYC.

People are either being completely disingenuous, or they don't understand that City of London is a relatively insignificant portion of greater London. This fact alone illustrates how absurd the comparison actually is:

> As of the 2011 census, the City of London has a population of 8,072 and area of 1.12 square miles.

(For context, Manhattan has a population of 1.65 million people, with about 73,000 people per square mile. Even setting aside that lower Manhattan is more densely populated than upper, and that a lot of people commute in from the outer boroughs, the congestion pricing scheme would have affected at least 800k resident people, or about 10% of NYCs total population.)

Aside from the points others have made that the congestion charge introduced by the mayor of the large urban area of London which covers the whole of central London[1] doesn't really have anything to do with the City of London boundaries or administration, I don't think "it's not well known in America" justifies the use of "secret"

The jurisdictions of San Mateo and Santa Clara aren't particularly well known in the UK but I'd still think any journalist referring to them as "secret" was being ludicrously hyperbolic...

[1]an area with approximately 17x the population of the City of London, and I suspect the ULEZ emissions charge which now covers all 9 million London residents also gets dragged into the US debate...

I never said anything about it being a "secret", nor did I even use the word.

You seem to be having an argument with the title of the piece, not with me.

The London congestion charge is a much larger area than the City

https://tfl.gov.uk/modes/driving/congestion-charge/congestio...

You're quibbling. The portion covered by the congestion charges is a tiny, tiny portion of the whole of London, comprising mostly business and entertainment areas.

The point I am making is that Americans use the naming confusion to draw the fundamentally misleading comparison.

The congestion charge in London has absolutely nothing to do with the City.

Yes the City of London has a population of around 10,000 but employs nearly 1 million by some estimates since the legal and financial capitals exist within it.

So, it's midtown Manhattan, which is a small portion of the area NYC proposed to meter.

What are you talking about the London congestion charge is analogous to the NYC one, covering the core central business district.

Only in the most broad definition of central business district.

The NYC one was just a toll, which would have created a variety of problems without really solving a bunch of others beyond revenue generation. The people gridlocking the west side to get on the tunnels aren't going to blink at a surcharge for the most part. The alternative in most cases is a $100 Uber, so a $25 toll is an annoying bargain. But massive industries, like specialty healthcare, would have been boned by patients who cannot handle the fare.

In the healthcare example, advocates would be like "not a problem! just get an exemption permit!". When my wife was being treated at MSK for an aggressive cancer, it took almost 5 months to get a NYC handicapped permit -- she unfortunately didn't live long enough to benefit. The street closures during COVID were often cited as a quality of life improvement... closures don't require a toll.

No, not even close. The NYC one covered all of Manhattan south of 60th, and almost every ingress/egress to the island. As I said in my comment, even if you only consider people who live in Manhattan (which is a fraction of the NYC residents affected by the proposed policy), it would have covered about 10% of the entire city -- about 800,000 people.

They may be confusing it with London's ULEZ (ultra low emissions zone), which was expanded last year with no democratic mandate and has been hugely controversial.

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