City Hall is above all the people’s palace

A few days ago I was at a financial services seminar at the top of City Hall. I was invited there as a guest. Although I don’t work in financial services I want to keep open the option of taking up a marketing role in the City.



The seminar was held on the top floor of City Hall, the glass doors to the gallery wide open (it was a hot sunny day). The presentations were very technical, but I understood most of what was said. There was a buffet lunch, which was very well done (I had a bit too much wine).

During the breaks we walked on the gallery looking at the panoramic views of London. City Hall was designed by the architect Norman Foster and resembles a lop-sided egg. It was opened in 2002 to a mixed reaction (like most of Norman Foster’s work it has a slightly supercilious quality, as if the architect is addressing posterity, not the mortals who currently inhabit London).

City Hall is above all the people’s palace where Mayor of London Ken Livingstone has his base. Ken Livingstone was originally ejected from the New Labour Party for being too much of a rebel, supporting policies of old-style socialism (a sincere belief in the nationalisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange). Following his popular election as Mayor of London he has been readmitted to Tony Blair’s Labour Party (they couldn’t really do much else).

Ken Livingstone has a very affable persona. He is a working-class Londoner who likes newts, and talks about socialism in a very down-to-earth and accessible way. He is rightly acclaimed for sorting out London’s transport problems.

He is one of the most successful politicians of the last twenty years.

And yet…

And yet…

He has a reputation for violence, including personally beating up people he disagrees with. He has a persistent reputation for anti-Semitism (an easy enough slur for his opponents to make, but the accusations are too recurrent to ignore). He is by any standards someone who must be in control.

Not a good person.



Above: From the gallery of City Hall you get this amazing view of HMS Belfast, a 6-inch-gun cruiser from the Second World War, now preserved as a museum. HMS Belfast played a leading role in the destruction of the German battle cruiser Scharnhorst, and also supported Allied troops as they landed on Gold and Juno beaches on D-Day, 6th June 1944. Because of its size and position on the Thames the ship is difficult to photograph from ground level.