“There are TWO Londons & Why It MATTERS” (Black Pigeon Speaks, 2017)
Why indeed should we be concerned that not one London but TWO Londons exist? Why are most Britons unaware of the existence of two Londons? The City of London – or more properly, the City of London Corporation aka the Square Mile – physically occupies a small amount of land along the Thames River in the heart of Greater London; yet by being the home of the Bank of England and the headquarters of all major British banks and domicile of a good many foreign banks, this city state within a city exercises an enormous amount of power and influence in the global financial industry and through that in the global economy and in global politics.
In this attractively presented mini-documentary, the Black Pigeon Speaks channel (hereafter BPS for convenience) traces the history of the Square Mile back to Roman times when it was founded. (This means the Square Mile is much older than the English nation or the English language.) BPS emphasises how different and secret the City of London is from the rest of London: it is led by its own Lord Mayor (separate from the Mayor of London) who has his own costume and golden carriage, and an annual parade in his honour, and who can refuse permission to the British monarch to enter the City of London premises. The City of London exercises influence in the British government through its representative in Westminster, known as the Remembrancer, to ensure that legislation passed does not harm its interests. The City is divided into 25 wards: in just 4 of these wards voters are people who live there; in the other 21 wards, the voters are corporations who end up exerting more influence on the City’s government than the 9,000 souls who live within its limits.
The main business of the City is in being a tax haven and thus a magnet and channel for money laundering and black hole hoovering up monies from drug barons, oligarchs, corrupt politicians and their families, and global companies wanting to lower or evade their taxation obligations. Its presence in London and mostly autonomous status prevent the British government from carrying out any major financial reforms in the British banking and insurance industry, and enable the financial economy in other countries such as the US to ignore those nations’ regulations and requirements.
The narration is clear and easy to follow and the presentation is quite relaxed and leisurely in pace. No actual data or statistics are given so the mini-documentary best serves as an introduction to the topic of the existence of the City of London and its malignant parasitic effect on proper and open governance, the economy of the United Kingdom, its people’s prosperity (or absence thereof) and on the economy of the rest of the world. I do get the feeling that BPS has relied quite a lot on known sources like Nicholas Shaxson on global tax evasion and tax havens. Viewers should not stop at this film but find out more about the City of London and its activities and about the scourge of tax havens and tax evasion, how it threatens the welfare and livelihoods of people throughout the world and the destruction of global environments, through their own investigations.
Black Pigeon Speaks is a controversial Youtube alternative news media channel that often espouses very right-wing opinions on a number of issues such as immigration and equality between men and women.