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The (Secret) City of London
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All the comments and stories posted to Hacker News that reference this video.Video by CGP Grey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
⬐ pchristensenCan't recommend this enough. It captures how truly historically unique this place is.⬐ rubitoI watched the Video but besides the "king entering the city ceremony" it didn't show what it makes it unique compared to other city states around the world.⬐ easytigerwell, arguably there are fewer than 5 city states in the world.⬐ lozengeIt's a city state without the state as it isn't internationally recognised.⬐ BillEllsonThe City of London is part of Greater London http://legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1963/33/section/2 residents & businesses are subject to the same laws & taxes as the rest of England.
The CGP Grey videos on the city of London are pretty great too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
Or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c
And CGP Grey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
I used to live and work in the city and loved telling people about the dragons guarding the city borders and the often weird and funny traditions. As much as the city is a hub of corporations it's actually far from the soulless place many make it out to be, and there is lots of interesting history there if you care to look. My favorite gateway drugs to learning more about the city of London are probably CGP Grey's videos:The (Secret) City of London: History Edition: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
The (Secret) City of London: Government Edition: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c
Interestingly the "City of London" is a specific thing that has surprising meaning [0], but used here I think it is a metonym for the financial / banking sector of the British economy.[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_of_London & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
> 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 ...
For those interested in learning more about the City of London there is a youtuber, CGP Grey, who has to great 10 min vids on what it is why it exists and how it operates. Link here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
⬐ rjmunroThat video is so much better than the above description makes it sound.⬐ twicIf you think the City is wild, wait until you find out about the Temples - a couple of office complexes for elite lawyers, descended from a Templar church, which are their own local authority, carved out from the City:https://www.middletemple.org.uk/about-us/freedom-information...
https://londonist.com/london/things-to-do/middle-temple-hist...
Relevant CGP Grey https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
There’s a CGP Grey video on the London inside London https://youtu.be/LrObZ_HZZUc
The "City Of London" (a small part of central London) has something like this. They have a resident population of <10,000 people, but somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people commute there for work. Companies get to nominate some of their workforce as voters for the council (called "The Corporation Of London").For historical reasons ("The City" is much older than the UK itself), things are much more complicated than simply "People who work there get to vote", so I'm not sure it's a very comparable situation. The best explanation I've found is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
I don’t know whether this is true because I never looked into it really, but a colleague of mine in the ndustry told me I could join the banker’s guild. His words were that because I lived in the city[1] at the time, and also worked for a bank in the city, I’d be eligible for membership if the bank would nominate or sponsor me as a representative. I’m hazy on the details, it was years ago, and I don’t really know whether it’s true since as mentioned I never checked it out. I kind of regret not doing so now though, since moving out of the city I’ve learned much more of it’s (weird and interesting) history and it would’ve been fun to at least try to see some of this from the inside. It probably wouldn’t have worked anyway, but would’ve been fun to try.For anyone looking for a fun little intro to the weirdness of the city and it’s history, I recommend CGP Grey’s channel and particularly his videos on the City of London[2][3].
[1]: for the benefit of people who might not be aware – “the city” is a colloquialism for the City of London, which is a small somewhat autonomous part of London, situated east of what most people (who don’t know this) probably think of when you say the city of London.
⬐ cmmeur01Here is an eye-opening look at how the city operates in the modern day.
GCP Grey does a great video on this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
Jay Foreman does another great video on the very weird situation with the House of Lords:
Indeed. CGPgrey did a nice video about these peculiarities of London: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
I never said it's London PD, it's City of London, these are two different things, have different mayors and budget etc.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
http://news.cityoflondon.police.uk/r/945/ibm__packet_clearin...
https://www.cityoflondon.police.uk/advice-and-support/cyberc...
⬐ bogomipzWhether its the City of London's Police Department or the Greater London Police is splitting hairs. Your comment suggests that the Quad9 was funded by a municipal police force. And that's patently untrue.If you dug a little deeper on one of your own links you would find that the NYC DA and City of London Police Department donated money to establish a 501(c)3 non-profit to combat cyber crime. That 5013C is but one member of a consortium of 3 companies behind Quad9.
"Knowing the potential that an organisation like GCA could have, the DA committed $25 million in criminal asset forfeiture proceeds to fund this critical work over a five-year period. The Center for Internet Security and City of London Police also made significant contributions in providing space, funding, staff, and assistance with building strategic partnerships."[1]
There are a lot. I thought this one was really funny [0]. This one I found very interesting [1].Somewhat different, is the Hello Internet [2] podcast, which is by Grey and Brady Haran who you might know from the Numberphile youtube channel [3]. It's basically the 2 of them chatting about random stuff, but I find it very entertaining.
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO1mTELoj6o
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
England is old, very old.For example the City of London existed before the crown of England, never mind the union we know as UK...
⬐ panglottThis comment remind me of Michael Lewis's profile of Greece during the 2008 financial crisis...http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2010/10/greeks-bearing-bonds-... 'The easiest way to cheat on one’s taxes was to insist on being paid in cash, and fail to provide a receipt for services. The easiest way to launder cash was to buy real estate. Conveniently for the black market—and alone among European countries—Greece has no working national land registry. “You have to know where the guy bought the land—the address—to trace it back to him,” says the collector. “And even then it’s all handwritten and hard to decipher.” ...Relationships with the rich and famous were essential in Vatopaidi’s pursuit of government grants and reparations for sackings, but also for the third prong of its new management’s strategy: real estate. By far the smartest thing Father Ephraim had done was go rummaging around in an old tower where they kept the Byzantine manuscripts, untouched for decades. Over the centuries Byzantine emperors and other rulers had deeded to Vatopaidi various tracts of land, mainly in modern-day Greece and Turkey. In the years before Ephraim arrived, the Greek government had clawed back much of this property, but there remained a title, bestowed in the 14th century by Emperor John V Palaiologos, to a lake in northern Greece. By the time Ephraim discovered the deed to the lake in Vatopaidi’s vaults, it had been designated a nature preserve by the Greek government. Then, in 1998, suddenly it wasn’t: someone had allowed the designation to lapse. Shortly thereafter, the monks were granted full title to the lake.' ...which they exchanged for government land at inflated value and then got into the bond market.
⬐ thinkling...and this leads to some interesting theories.If you want a deep dive into Conspiracy Theory Territory, google for "Crown Temple" and read about how the "Crown Temple" controls the (regular) Crown and how it secretly owns the United States of America.
⬐ myopicgoat⬐ jwdunneThis is hilarious, well worth a read.⬐ frikkSeems that a lot hinges on the use of 'state' in the US Constitution, which feels like a stretch.Here's a few more interesting facts:- before the Crown, there were several crowns. England was composed of a handful of Anglo-Saxon petty kingdoms
- before that, it had an emperor. The Roman emperor.
- parts were ruled by the Danish (the Danelaw) and parts were ruled by the Saxons
- with regards to the UK, the political union is much younger than the union of crowns. The personal union was a Scottish king inheriting the English throne. The political union was the English parliament strong arming the Scottish.
- there was once a kingdom of Ireland until England had its way.
⬐ olauIf you're into historical fiction, I can recommend the Saxon Stories by Bernard Cornwell:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Saxon_Stories
I don't know how historically accurate they are, but they're relatively fast paced, fun to read and take place around the time where there were several kingdoms.
⬐ ptaipaleAnd there was also a Kingdom of Dublin, ruled by the Danes.It lasted from 853 AD to 1171 when the Norman conquest finished it off -- in fact, this is a longer time than what the Acts of Union of England and Scotland have lasted so far.
⬐ dreenThe Saxons also came from area of modern Denmark, to fill the void left by collapsed Roman Britain, which was occupied by Celtic Britons (and Romans from other parts of the Empire)⬐ jacobush⬐ dghfAnd I'd dare say, even some "Roman Celts"! The roman influence was long and strong.⬐ dghf⬐ flurdyThere is a sixth century memorial stone in North Wales that uses consular dating: "The stone of ... son of Avitorius. In the time of Justinus the Consul." (Justinus was consul in Constantinople in 540 AD.)Source: http://www.walesher1974.org/her/groups/GAT/media/GAT_Reports..., p. 121.
And the Normans was originally Danes, Icelanders and Norwegians that settled and integrated into Normandy, France, before crossing the channel...> there was once a kingdom of Ireland until England had its wayThere was, but its king was the King of England (and later of Great Britain), and its parliament was subjugated to the parliament at Westminster, which could veto its acts and legislate directly for Ireland. It saw a brief period of autonomy towards the end of the eighteenth century, when its relationship with Britain became more akin to that between England and Scotland from the Union of the Crowns to the Act of Union; but after the United Irishmen revolt, Britain convinced the Parliament of Ireland, at least partly through bribery of its members, to abolish itself, and Ireland was formally absorbed into the UK.
Before the Kingdom of Ireland was the Lordship of Ireland, which was much the same, but with the King of England as Lord (rather than King) of Ireland, a title granted in 1154 by the first and only English pope, Adrian IV. (Henry VIII had himself declared King of Ireland after his breach with Rome, to quash the belief that the Pope was Ireland's ultimate sovereign.)
Before the Lordship there was a whole mass of kingdoms and sub-kingdoms (including the Kingdom of Dublin mentioned by ptaipale in a sibling to this comment), sometimes united under a High King, the most famous possibly being Brian Boru.
⬐ jwdunneFor some odd reason, I was sure there was an independent kingdom but clearly not. I think I've played too much Ck2 to remember my real history now. Thanks for that :)⬐ dghf⬐ Anthony-GWell, like I said, there was the High Kingship, but opinion seems to be divided on whether it represented a genuine political union, a confederation, a series of occasional and temporary alliances, a courtesy title for a "first among equals", a claim of supremacy not necessarily accepted by other Irish kings, or all of the above at different times. And at least some of its incumbents, especially the earlier ones, were entirely fictional.That’s an impressively comprehensive, concise and well-informed history of Ireland with regard to its various kingdoms. I only learned some of this history in the past two years and while I had learned that Henry II had received a papal mandate to conquer Ireland, I hadn’t realised until now that Adrian IV was actually English.
You reminded me of this brilliant video:
CGP Grey's "The (Secret) City of London" are great videos on the topic of the City of London (vs. London)Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c
A really well-make explanation of the "City of London" I recommend CGP Grey's videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
FYI the "City of London" is distinct from "London" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
⬐ w_t_payneI know. In this context I'm using it as a lazy and confusing sort of hand-wavy way of referring either to the square mile or Canary Wharf -- and hijacking the debate a bit to promote my own wild and wacky schemes whilst I'm at it -- but hey, it wouldn't be the internet without some sort of conceptual slippage going on, would it?
If anyone cares to know more about the City of London, CGP Grey did a nice two-parter video describing its history, its privileges and how to become mayor if you care to.The (Secret) City of London, Part 1: History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
The (Secret) City of London, Part 2: Government https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1ROpIKZe-c
CGP Grey has a good explanation of London vs The City of London:
CGP Grey does a really good job giving an overview of the history of The City of London.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
Along with another video about the governing structure of The City of London.
⬐ wavefunctionThanks!
I find your comment somewhat alarmist, and lacking historical context. The City of London (from which the Temple end of the Garden Bridge starts) is many many hundreds of years older than the UK itself, and has always been privately owned and governed by shadowy, corporate and arcane processes. Traditionally even the Queen is not allowed to enter the City of London without the say-so of the Lord Mayor. This "private place operating as a public space" has been operating for centuries and stewarded the emergence of London as a leading global financial centre and until recently capital of the largest Empire the world has ever seen.I admit it's reasonable to debate the pros and cons of private ownership of public spaces in city centres, but my point is that in this case The City of London is both historically unique and important, and by many measures been a huge success for the host nation.
Informative/fun video on the subject:
⬐ pjc50privately ownedI think that's also misleading; it's not a 'corporation'=='limited liability company with shares'. It's not a "capitalist" institution, it's a pre-capitalist feudal institution that predates the LLC by centuries. It's an elected local body with an unusual electorate.
⬐ scholia⬐ jsingletonThe bridge (if built) will be owned by a charitable trust, and government funding covers roughly one third of the projected cost.I would have thought that the City of London Corporation would be opposed to Wi-Fi tracking. Given their negative reaction when they discovered that the street bins were tracking people [0]. The technology in question was Presence Orb [1].It's a good idea to turn Wi-Fi off when you leave home/work. This also avoids the issue of captive portals with gated internet access capturing your phone and disabling your data connection. I'm looking at you TfL.
[0] http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/12/city-london-cor...
⬐ jarekThe bridge is a particularly contentious subject since it's funded by tens of millions of pounds of public money. If The City wants an independent bridge, surely it shouldn't be a problem to stump 40 million rather than asking TfL as if this was a major transport project.Though yes, all the fuss is slightly ironic in the city where most central greenspaces are property of Royal Parks.
Agree, though I like the Silicon Roundabout name more. The Tech City name to me seems like a government idea, sort of Information Superhighway....With finding money it is good that Shoreditch is right next to the City (of London, not London the City https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc), and there is a good amount of Angels and VCs in Shoreditch itself.
The short answer is "no".The longer answer is "well, kinda, but not really". There have been a couple of convictions, but these were guilty pleas - people who have either been advised incorrectly by their solicitors (most probably because they were not experts in copyright law) or just really did not want to go through a trial.
The copyright industry has tried to completely side-step copyright law entirely and use the offence of "conspiracy to defraud" with very dubious legal basis.
It's been far from common, though. There have only been a handful of attempted prosecutions, and usually only because the copyright industry (via FACT[0]) has leant on the police.
Most recently they've c̶o̶r̶r̶u̶p̶t̶e̶d̶ err, co-opted the City of London Police. This is the force that polices the square-mile City of London in the heart of London (See CGP Grey's excellent video[1] for more about the City of London vs the city called London).
[0] The 'Federation Against Copyright Theft' - an absurd name for an absurd organisation - http://www.fact-uk.org.uk/
CGPGrey did a pretty interesting video a while back that explains the difference: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
Also explained by a CGPGrey video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUc
CGPGrey's The (Secret) City of London (Part [1]: History, Part [2]: Government)
⬐ dhughesI've seen the video at link #1 before but not #2, still interesting to watch I watch #1 again and #2.
As an aside, the article points out how the City of London is a separate entity from greater London, but doesn't go into a lot of detail about it. This video does an effective job in explaining how things work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?internalcountrycode=NL&v=Lr...
⬐ hkmurakamiI remember being utterly perplexed when I found out that there is a "Mayor of London" and a "Lord Mayor of London". :P⬐ NoneNone⬐ agwaThat's interesting, but it doesn't address to what extent someone in the City of London could skirt British laws or taxes as the article implies. In 1771, the aldermen of the City of London were able to bar Parliament from entering the City of London to arrest a newspaper publisher who had broken the law by publishing transcripts of Parliamentary debates. Does the City of London still have that kind of autonomy?⬐ walshemjIf they are non domiciled for tax is the normal way they do this.⬐ gaddersNo. It has a separate police force, but I don't think the boundaries are as strict as they are for, say, state boundaries in the US. Pretty sure a Met Police Car wouldn't stop a pursuit because it entered the city.//edit//Although in Victorian times I believe it did inhibit attempts to capture Jack the Ripper.
⬐ RobAleyIndeed, all Police Officers in the country have their powers throughout the whole country, regardless of which Force they belong to. There are courtesy’s that are usually observed when crossing into another force area in pursuit of a criminal, the control room of the other force is informed (and usually asked for help), and local officers will often take over or lead the pursuit if they are available, though this is more because they know the area better. Upon arrest, the criminal will usually be "booked in" at the local police station but then transported back to one of the original force's police stations for processing. Criminal law is the same across the country, so there is no sense of different jurisdictions. There are some more formalities going into Scotland, which has slightly different criminal laws, but nothing that stops a good chase! Theres no benefit to the criminal of "getting across" internal borders (akin to state lines in the US). Getting across a border externally means crossing the sea, and even then co-operation between European forces is getting better.
The City of London cannot pull the eject handle and relocate. The City of London is a separate legal entity[1] with it's own laws and rules, and it's those rules that meant that the trading that took down Lehman Brothers was conducted in the City of London, because it couldn't have really legally taken place elsewhere.
⬐ cstrossYou're missing the point: the institutions that are headquartered there conduct a huge volume of Euro-denominated derivatives trading, which becomes impossible if the City loses its license to do so, and it's hard to see them retaining it if the UK leaves the EU. So those banks would have to relocate their investment arms to somewhere in the EU. That's got to be worth several points off the UK's GDP. Instant recession -- and it's not recoverable.
The City of London is also another example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrObZ_HZZUcNote: "City of London" is not the same as "London", where the Olympics were held.