Daily Telegraph: "It is not what you’d call a convincing start. Today, David Wootton takes office as the City of London’s [replacement] Lord Mayor, continuing a tradition dating back to 1189."
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| 'The Lord Mayor is Dead, Long Live the Lord Mayor' Link to the Daily Telegraph |
"To summarise the charge sheet: the Corporation is a plutocratic old boys club, in hock to big finance that’s masonically secretive and blind to the City’s excesses. Not only is reform long overdue, but abolishing the Lord Mayor would be a top place to start.
"Wootton relates how the previous Lord Mayor, Michael Bear, has had a 'year-long
initiative called Restoring Trust in the City'. To the observation that it
doesn’t seem to have worked, Wootton responds that while Bear’s work was 'away from the public gaze', the next phase is 'much more public'.
"... The Corporation’s cash buys land beyond the Square Mile for future City
expansion. This week it found itself denying reports that it spent £100m
redeveloping Spitalfields to the benefit of Hammerson, the [Brent Cross] property company
that employs former Mayor Bear.
"Wootton praises the transformation of the 'derelict' Spitalfields site, before
volunteering that 'my offices [at Allen & Overy] are there by a total
coincidence'.
"So, a case of the old Mayor’s employer building a new office for the new
Mayor’s firm? 'Well, exactly. Wonderful. Wonderful,' is Wootton’s initial
response – before stressing neither he nor Bear was directly involved in the
Spitalfields project."
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