There it was in plain view - invisible. And with all this boundary kerfuffle going on. Surprised someone in the media didn't bring it to the public's notice. Yes, throw this putrid political no-go area into the mix. What's good for the goose is good for the gander.
But what about Dick Whittington's cat? Lord Mayor - well did you ever?

Pantomime Borough

"Businesses do not have votes in the City, but in proportion to the number of employees can appoint voters."

Because, as we all know, corporations are people!

The City is an anomaly which exercises undue and invidious influence on government and the economy, and which is directly responsible for the policies of the Blair/Brown regime which led to the current mire in which we wallow. What elicits a deep dark laugh is the fact that the same companies that advised Gordon Brown' government (from the likes of KPMG, Mckinsey, etc etc) are also ensconced at Cameron & Osborne's elbows. Having used New Labour to kick the legs out from under the nation's finances, the race is on to dismember the welfare state and refashion public services into a big, delicious wealth pump, thereby keeping the City and its creatures in the opulence to which they have become accustomed.

No more. Abolish or reform the City, just make it serve the country rather than the reverse.

Nonsense as usual from McDonnell. What we need to do is democratise the City of London. The GLA should move into Guildhall, and have a vote on who becomes Lord Mayor. Faith groups, groups from civil society, community leaders and other businesspeople all across London should also have representation in the City of London Corporation.

Since 1999, I have been a Parish Councillor where there are about nine thousand people in an area which, excluding outlying hamlets and farms, is about one mile square. I am pleased to say that we have lots of businesses. But there is absolutely no suggestion that those businesses should have votes, still less that those votes should be greater than the votes of real people.

Unless the Miliband Government is going to exact particularly sweet revenge by making the Square Mile a Ward of the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, then the City of London needs a City Council, a London Borough as the City of Westminster already is, with each ward electing three Councillors as elsewhere in London, and with each year's Chairman serving as Lord Mayor. An ideal opportunity to use the system that we all urgently need for municipal elections above Parish or Town level, whereby each of us would vote for one candidate and the requisite number, never fewer than two, would be declared elected at the end.

All the pageantry and all the charity could and should remain. Such an inheritance is very common in local government. Have you ever been to Durham? The City could remain its own ceremonial county, since the link between those and municipal arrangements was cut all the way back when an unprotesting Margaret Thatcher was in the Cabinet.

And the existing wealth of the Corporation, a fine old word for this sort of thing, would also be retained, in addition to normal sources of funding. Do they pay business rates in the City? They do not seem to pay very much else. But they would. For there would be no more state within the State; at present, the Queen is forbidden to set foot in the Square Mile without special permission. Still less would there be any inability to tell which state was which.

"Instead the City Corporation to this day retains the business vote, which overwhelms the votes of residents in the elections for its Common Council."
Four of the City's wards are predominantly residential, but elect much the same sort of people as the other 21. There is precious little sign of residents being unhappy with present arrangements. In the early 1990s residents of those parts of the Barbican and Golden Lane estates that were then in Islington petitioned the Boundary Commission for Local Government to be transferred to the City. The boundary was changed in 1994.

"The vast proportion of elections in the City have not been contested."
Over the last 1,000 years perhaps, but the majority of wards were contested in 2009 as can be seen on the City's website.

"Around a decade ago, Malcolm Matson was elected with 80 per cent of the vote but was known to favour reform. He was hauled before the City’s Court of Aldermen and was blackballed."
As Mr McDonnell knows perfectly well this happened in 1995. The law was changed to prevent this happening again in 2002. The law would have been changed 4 or 5 years earlier if the bill had not been repeatedly talked out by an obscure backbencher called John McDonnell.

"It was Labour Party policy since its foundation to abolish the City Corporation, until Blair arrived and the policy changed to reform. The City cynically interpreted reform as simply giving more businesses the vote."
The only time that it was every Labour Party policy to abolish the City Corporation was in the 1983 manifesto, later described by Gerald Kaufman as the "longest suicide note in history".
Clement Attlee and Harold Wilson were both Freemen of the City of London. Businesses do not have votes in the City, but in proportion to the number of employees can appoint voters. These business voters then vote in the normal way by secret ballot. Businesses in this context includes churches, hospitals, sweetshops, pubs etc.