Archie Galloway loses his seat in the “elections” for the City of London Common Council

The City of London is a strange quasi-democratic organisation – much more akin to the management committee of trading estate than a local council.  I say that because even its “reformed” electoral system residential voters are potentially overwhelmed by voters nominated by the businesses in the area.  This year in its “elections” a number of individuals stood for election explicitly as Labour candidates (most candidates describe themselves as “Independent” or give no description at all).  None of these Labour candidates were elected, but there does seem to have been rather more interest in the Corporation’s elections than normal with a majority of wards having contested elections and in some instances the turnout creeping up to over 400 “votes” cast.

I am not sufficiently versed in the internal politics of the Corporation (and I am not sure I want to be) to make much of the significance of the detailed results.  However, I did notice that Archie Galloway appears to have lost his seat on the Common Council, having been a member since 1981.  Having seen Archie on a variety of London-wide committees during the 1990s, I always regarded him as a fundamentally decent man who seemed to have the wider interests of London at heart.  I trust the “electors” of Broad Street knew what they were doing.