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The City of London is an age-old construct by the financial and aristocratic elite to further their interests and evade a few taxes and regulations. The CoL pol

• mnd999 6y ago
  Scotland Yard is a place where the Met just happened to be based.
• OJFord 6y ago
  City of London is no weirder than New York City, and Scotland Yard is no weirder than Wall Street. In the UK 'city' doesn't mean 'big place', so we have some that you'd call villages, and others that you'd recognise.
  • eigenket 6y ago
    City of London is kinda weird as its the only place in the UK that companies can vote (as far as I'm aware). its got like 10k actual humans voting there and like 24k votes from companies.
  • tankenmate 6y ago
    In times of yore in the UK (and England in particular) city status was bestowed primarily by dent of there being a cathedral in the city. City status was (and I think also still is on advice of parliament) also bestowed by the Crown. These days it is largely down to population size.
  • corty 6y ago
    CoL is far weirder. First, it is not the same as "London", it is just the central part of London. CoL has a different election system from all other parts of England, corporations get a vote (actually, several, how many depends on size and kind of business, derived from the ancient guild system) and outnumber residents by far. This also includes voting the sherrifs into office, explaining the firmly pro-business stance of the police. The CoL also owns properties outside it's own domain, even public grounds in Northern Ireland (via an intermediary). Large parts of the CoL and thereby electoral votes in the CoL are owned by the Crown, the royal family and various lords. This explains the CoL escaping all attempts at reforming it into something more democratic and into a normal part of the city of London (note the non-capital 'c' in 'city'). Read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London if you are interested. If you want to know how ancient and ingrained the weirdness of the CoL is, look no further than to one of three clauses of the Magna Carta still in effect: "IX. THE City of London shall have all the old Liberties and Customs which it hath been used to have. Moreover We will and grant, that all other Cities, Boroughs, Towns, and the Barons of the Five Ports, as with all other Ports, shall have all their Liberties and free Customs."
  • DyslexicAtheist 6y ago
    > City of London is no weirder than NYC ... really, not weird? compared to what? the Vatican? It's arguably the financial (offshore) capital of the world and home to over eleven thousand people. The City of London lives inside of the city named London but the two Londons have separate city halls and elect separate mayors, who collect separate taxes to fund separate police who enforce separate laws. The Mayor of the City of London is called 'The Right Honourable Lord Mayor of London' to match his fancy outfit. He gets to ride in a golden carriage and work in a Guildhall while the mayor of London has to wear a suit, ride a bike and work in an office building. The City of London also has its own flag and its own crest and gets to act more like one of the countries in the UK than just an oddly located city. The corporation that runs the city of London is older than the United Kingdom by several hundred years. It was created by Romans in 43 CE as "Londonimium" with their temples, public baths, roads, bridges and a wall to defend their work. It's this wall which is why the current City of London exists - for though the Romans came and the Romans went and kingdoms rose and kingdoms fell, the wall endured protecting the city within. After the Romans William the Conqueror came to Great Britain to begin modern British history he found the City of London, with its sturdy walls more challenging to defeat than farmers on open fields. So he agreed to recognize the rights and privileges City of Londoners were used to in return for the them recognizing him as the new King. Though after the negotiation, William quickly built towers around the City of London which were just as much about protecting William from the locals within as defending against the Vikings from without. This started a thousand-year long tradition whereby Monarchs always reconfirmed that 'yes' the City of London is a special, unique place best left to its own business, while simultaneously distrusting it. Many a monarch thought the City of London was too powerful and rich. And one even built a new Capital city nearby, named Westminster, to compete with the City of London and hopefully, suck power and wealth away from it. This was the start of the second London. As the centuries passed, Westminster grew and merged with nearby towns eventually surrounding the walled-in, and still separate City of London. But, people began to call the whole urban collection 'London' and the name became official when Parliament joined towns together under a single municipal government with a mayor. But, the mayor of London still doesn't have power over the tiny City of London which has rules and traditions like nowhere else in the country and possibly the world. For example, the ruling monarch doesn't just enter the City of London on a whim, but instead asks for permission from the Lord Mayor at a ceremony. While it's not required by law, the ceremony is, unusual to say the least. The City of London also has a representative in Parliament, the "Remembrancer", whose job it is to protects the City's special rights. Because of this, laws passed by Parliament sometimes don't apply to the City of London: most notably voting reforms ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
• deleted 6y ago
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