Tribe Tracker

We are fascinated by what Alderwoman Grekos is up to now that her Tribe has been elected. We have set up this new page to report back on what’s really going on to enable the electorate in the ward to understand how the Tribe and their leader are representing the Ward as elected members.

July 2025 Jollies for Grekos and the Tribe – Jams for Castle Baynard

In a recent article (which was whining about this web page) posted on Grekos’ favourite anonymous blog, it’s claimed that working on City Committees is a waste of time. The Tribe and their Leader seem to have taken this advice to heart but remain impressively diligent about attending free City banquets. Grekos and Tribe members have attended three banquets recently, the state banquet for President Macron, the Judges Dinner and the Easter Banquet.

We are told that some Tribe members declined to wear their robes during the reception for the state banquet, they also ignored instructions that photography was not permitted for security reasons, and one of the Tribe’s invited guests was a “no show” with no explanation and no apology, depriving someone else of the opportunity to attend.

The blog also revealed that as a matter of principle Grekos and her Tribe will not be attending Committee dinners (this is not much of a sacrifice given how few committees they are members of, so they won’t be invited anyway) but strangely they have a different perspective about the banquets funded from the same source (the City Estate).

Meanwhile, back in the Ward important, but less glamorous matters such as Case Work are being neglected. This was highlighted by the recent utility works at the east end of Fleet Street (in the heart of the Ward) which resulted in all east bound traffic being forced on a lengthy diversion north at Fetter Lane, causing considerable unnecessary disruption to residents and businesses in Whitefriars and the Temples as this meant that east bound traffic was prohibited from turning south into Bouverie Street.

Fortunately, two members from the nearby wards of Farringdon Within and Without take their responsibilities more seriously and gave up some of their time over a weekend, reviewed what was happening and instructed Highways Officers to sort things out urgently, which happened immediately. A change was made to enable local traffic to proceed east to Bouverie Street and turn right with the east bound closure being moved immediately after that point.

After the Tribe’s bizarre start to their terms as CCs a kindly ward resident has helpfully been in contact and suggested that a re-launch and a rebranding might be beneficial as they start again in September after the summer break. Rather than the Iceni and their leader Boudicca, they suggested that it would be more appropriate if the Tribe take inspiration from the famous ballet Giselle which will be staged at the London Coliseum next January. This tells the story of the deadly sisterhood of the Wilis, led by Myrtha (sic), the Queen of the Wilis.

June 2025 Alderwoman Grekos Loses the Plot at June Court of Common Council (CoCo)

Alderwoman Grekos tabled a motion to the June Court supported by seven members of the Tribe. It proposed that investments in City Estate funds be liquidated to fund the acceleration of renovation work on the City’s housing estates. Beginning the debate Alderwoman Grekos stated that it was unacceptable that the City Estate was being used to fund members’ dining, drinking and privileges at Committee dinners instead of using its funds to address the overdue renovation work. She said that City Estate should be used for the public good and that the motion “aims to start that process”.

The Corporation’s City Estate Fund can be traced back to the 13th century, originating from a combination of property holdings, land acquisitions and philanthropic bequests. Over the centuries, the fund (an endowment) has been nurtured and flourished through wise investments in real estate, stocks, and other financial assets. Its income is used by the Corporation to support a wide range of services and initiatives that benefit London and the nation.

During the debate 4 Tribe members (dressed in green again!?) spoke in favour of the motion apart from Josephine Hayes. The 3 other Tribe members who signed the motion surprisingly did not bother to show up (Tana Adkin, Leyla Ostovar and Stephanie Steeden).

Among the members who opposed the motion was the Chair of Policy & Resources who stated that of the £205 million required to remediate all of the City Estates £121 million has already been identified and that officers had been instructed to run a viability assessment of all the estates and to identify further options to raise more funding through a mix of government grants, joint partnerships estate intensification and other possibilities. This work will begin in July and be completed by the end of September. He pointed out that “we can only liquidate assets once – if the motion was enacted it would reduce the income from City Estate by about £7 million pa”.

During the debate those members who spoke against the motion all agreed that more needed to be done quickly to improve the City’s housing estates, however they were uncomfortable with mandating the use of City Estate assets for this purpose unless this was the only option. Consequently, a member sensibly proposed an amendment to the motion that officers be instructed to evaluate ALL options for increasing the availability of funds (this would not exclude the use of City Estate).

Alderwoman Grekos then spoke against the amendment wrongly claiming that the amendment excluded the City Estate as a funding option, and then astonishingly said that her original motion was “all about the City Estate Fund” (so presumably not about the condition of City’s social housing!). She also accused the motion proposer of “hijacking and an ambush”. The proposer formally objected to the inappropriate language she used which was upheld by the Town Clerk – Alderwoman Grekos did not withdraw these remarks.

The amended motion was then voted on by the Court and was comfortably passed with both Grekos and the Tribe voting against, with interestingly the notable exception of Tribe member Josephine Haynes who voted in favour.

Alderwoman Grekos does minimal Committee work, but objects to annual Committee dinners (funded by City Estate) which are attended by officers, key external stakeholders and hard working committee members (all of whom are unpaid) but it’s very strange that she went to the Planning & Transportation Dinner (memorably snubbing the Chair and Deputy greeting the guests) despite having resigned from the Committee after being a member for 8 months and only attending 3 meetings out of 7.

The Alderwoman also continually writes enthusiastically in her “newsletters” about all of the evening events (also funded through City Estate) she attends with members of the Tribe and often exaggerates her own role in the proceedings (see picture above taken recently at the Easter Banquet at Mansion House).

Since being elected all of the Tribe members have complied with whatever is instructed by their leader Grekos (see articles below). The antics of the Tribe since being elected are no longer a joke – we sincerely hope that they will start to consider the wisdom of obeying without question Alderwoman Grekos given that they purported to stand as Independent candidates in the March election. We welcome a sign that this will eventually happen after Josephine Hayes decided to think and act independently at CoCo last week.

June 2025 Tribe Rituals at Port Health Committee

At their first Port Health & Environmental Services Committee the two Tripe Tribe (isn’t predictive text uncanny at times!) members representing the ward Helen Ladele and Vasiliki Manta were dressed as usual in Tribe Green (why?). During the 3 ballots for the new Deputy Chair there were 2 spoiled papers in each of the 3 rounds.

During the non-public part of the meeting, we were told that bizarrely the two Tribe members subsequently abstained on every vote taken on committee business! Are they under instruction from their leader to do this, or do they need to be given her permission to operate as normal committee members when engaging in committee business?

May 2025 – Grekos Grandstanding at Planning

At the April meeting of the Planning Applications Sub Committee (PASC) Alderwoman Grekos exercised the right for non Committee members to address the Committee to make representations on an “Adult Gaming Centre” application for 55 Fleet St. The papers before the Committee contained an officer recommendation for refusal, there were numerous objections from local stakeholders including the City police, and no representations in support.

During the first part of her speech Alderwoman Grekos briefly spoke about the application but added nothing new apart from saying that she supported the recommendation in the papers. She then went on to reveal the main reasons for speaking:

1. To praise the Tribe “my amazing Iceni Councillors” for their role in organizing a petition and imploring the Committee members “to be more like the Iceni” and “act at all times with honesty and integrity” (sic).

2. Waste the committee’s time and also insult the members by inferring that they are not ethical.

When she finished the Committee Chair amusingly observed that he was under the impression that the Iceni had burned the City down. A member from Farringdon Without then spoke briefly and made the point that the premises was in his ward not Castle Baynard. There was no other discussion and a vote was then taken, the Officers’ recommendation to refuse was unanimously supported which would have been the outcome irrespective of Grekos’ grandstanding.

Given the Tribe’s reluctance to serve on City committees (see below) it’s likely that members in other wards will ignore Grekos’ advice to emulate them otherwise the Corporation wouldn’t be able to accomplish much in the future!

April 2025 – First Meeting of Common Council

Immediately before Court meetings a buffet is provided in the Members’ dining room, this is an excellent opportunity to meet and network with other members in a relaxed informal atmosphere. None of the Tribe attended and instead sat in the bar outside with their leader.

The Tribe members seem to have been persuaded by their leader that the Court is a hot bed of bullying and misogyny. In our experience the overwhelming majority of the Court consists of talented, decent hardworking men and women who can occasionally disagree on policy issues without bearing grudges – and give up huge amounts of their time without being paid, for the betterment of the City, wider London and the economy of the nation.

During the first Court meeting after the Spring break, a large number of ballots are held for Committee vacancies. Apart from one ballot the Tribe members deliberately spoiled their ballot papers by entering “NONE OF THE ABOVE” on their forms. The one exception was the ballot for Policy & Resources, the senior Corporation committee where 2 members of the Tribe (Farrington and Hayes) stood for election.

Unsurprisingly they finished bottom of the poll as they are currently unknown to members from other wards. None of the Tribe or their leader Grekos stood for election to other Committees. So apart from the 5 ward committees (with 2 positions allocated  on each) the ward now has minimal representation on over 100 other City committees with none on Licensing, Police and Streets & Walkways for example.

However, we note that Helen Ladele has volunteered to join the Homelessness & Rough Sleeping Sub committee, this one is hard work and unglamorous but will be appreciated by all of us who live in the ward where rough sleepers are becoming increasingly problematic.

The reluctance of the Tribe members to serve on important Committees is regrettable; it’s possible that work commitments mean that they do not have the time but if so why did they stand for office?

However, we presume that Tribe members will nevertheless go to City receptions, social events and Banquets, as their leader seems to believe that attending these is the major duty of elected members judging by the content of her “News Letters” 

Immediately After the Election

The Corporation runs an excellent training programme for new members which is spread over a few weeks. We can confirm how valuable this training is to enable new members to become effective quickly, and also to establish a useful network with other new members prior to the resumption of Corporation business.

We are told that the Tribe did not attend these sessions as Grekos decided that she would carry out the training herself. Given that one of the major roles of elected members is Committee work (there are approximately 120 Committees in total) and that Grekos has minimal experience of City Committee work (she sits on only one outside of two Aldermanic Committees) it’s difficult to understand the rationale for boycotting the training.

March 2025 – It’s the Month of Love!

Despite living and working in the ward, for some reason we are not on the Alderwoman’s mailing list for her “Newsletters”.

However, we were provided with a copy of the latest one which provoked this reaction from a local resident.

Pass the sick bag – the “month of love”?! It’s the month of self-love every month for Martha Grekos: