LETTER : City aldermen will 'have to go'

From Cllr Simon Winters

Sir: Richard Agutter may be celebrating his unopposed election by his firm as alderman in the City of London ("Accountant elected City alderman in one-man contest", 22 August) but it may turn out to be a briefly held post. Since 1990, it has been Labour policy to abolish the archaic City of London Corporation. Details have yet to be worked out, and abolition might not necessarily mean the end of the Lord Mayor of London. But what is certain is that the phoney councillors and aldermen will have to go. They elect themselves using business votes in so-called "wards", which have no residents.

These rather secretive men play with large sums of public money, and are accountable to nobody except the private firms who chose them.

The incoming Labour Government will have many priorities, but our constituency party will lobby it hard to have the 1990 nationally agreed policy implemented.

Yours sincerely,

Simon Winters

City of Westminster

London, SW1

23 August