City of London's Chief Joins Black Powerlist: Is This a Step Toward Equality or Just Another Financial Farce?

Ian Thomas, who runs the City of London Corporation, has topped the Black Powerlist in its 21st year, and the Square Mile is delighted. Nothing says progress like a list of the country’s most influential people, headed by someone who already sits at the top of one of the most powerful local institutions in the country.

The Corporation is a venerable outfit. It has a Lord Mayor, a long list of ceremonial traditions, and a mandate to look after one of the most valuable square miles on earth, where glass towers hold more money than most nations and the Christmas bonus is treated as a seasonal weather event. The people who run this place are now celebrating diversity, which is a fine thing to do in a boardroom with a view of a neighbourhood where rents would make a pensioner weep. The juxtaposition is so precise it could be a museum exhibit.

Congratulations to Mr Thomas are genuinely due. Representation at the top matters, and recognising achievement is better than ignoring it. But a Powerlist is a mirror, and the reflection in the City is a little awkward: a wonderfully varied top table, sitting above a financial district where the ladder still has a very long queue at the bottom.

So is this a step toward equality, or another financial farce? Probably both, which is the most British answer available. Take the photograph. Enjoy the applause. Then ask who is still waiting outside the revolving door.