Press releases Number-crunching at the Lord Mayor’s Show 2008
Friday 26 September 2008

Pictured is Oscar Melder, two, a member of the under-fives project at Stamford Hill Community Centre who helped decorate ELFA’s Lord Mayor’s Show float. Elfa provides a food co-operative outside the Centre. Photo by Jeff Moore.

Notes for Editors

For further information, please contact Lesley Mair at the City of London Corporation on 020 7332 1754 or by email: Lesley.Mair at cityoflondon.gov.uk.

The Role of the Lord Mayor

The Lord Mayor of the City of London is an international ambassador for the UK financial services industry and spends up to 80 days a year traveling to around 20 countries to promote this industry and the Square Mile as a place of excellence in which to do business.

As head of the City of London the Lord Mayor is involved with local government and London-wide issues, ranging from the City of London’s work in the regeneration of neighbouring boroughs to transport and environmental issues which affect the City.

On behalf of the Sovereign and the Government, he also acts as host when the City of London provides hospitality for visiting heads of state and foreign dignitaries. In addition, the Lord Mayor provides a platform for Government Ministers to make keynote speeches. The Prime Minister attends the Lord Mayor’s annual Banquet at Guildhall, whilst the Bankers’ Dinner each June is the occasion for the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s annual keynote speech, known as the Mansion House Speech. The Easter Banquet, also held at Mansion House, is the major annual opportunity for all London’s diplomats to listen to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary. Other Cabinet members and international business figures also value these opportunities.

The Lord Mayor also presides over meetings of the Court of Common Council and Court of Aldermen, and attends Livery events and charitable projects. He receives visiting overseas ministers and senior businessmen and keeps in close contact with City institutions and firms as well as travelling to other UK financial centres to keep in touch with regional economic activity. In his year of office he will make some 600 speeches on a wide variety of subjects from City financial matters to charity and patronage.

City of London Corporation

The ancient City of London Corporation has a 21st-century role supporting the business city as the world’s leading international financial and business centre. The City of London Corporation provides local government services for the City of London Square Mile at the heart of London but its responsibilities also extend far beyond the City boundaries and include paying for and running the Barbican Centre, Epping Forest, Hampstead Heath, and three wholesale food markets, as well as acting as the London Port Health Authority.

The final weeks of preparation are under way for the Lord Mayor’s Show on Saturday 8th November as the participant list is confirmed.

The 2008 Show will feature:

• 6,100 participants
• 220 vehicles – including a Sherman tank from WW2, vintage buses, taxis, two steamrollers, a fleet of Morris Minors and a horse-drawn Santa sleigh!
• 21 carriages – including the 251-year-old gold, Lord Mayor’s State Coach
• 71 floats – including four sponsored by the City of London Corporation
• 200 horses – 115 of which are military horses
• 13 marching bands
• 120 marshals

In a blend of history and modernity, Carnival dancers will perform along side top club DJs, military marching bands and Hong Kong acrobats as the 3.1mile-long parade winds its way through the streets of the City of London, from the Mansion House to the Courts of Justice via St Paul’s Cathedral and back.

A military flypast over Mansion House at 11am marks the beginning of the parade to celebrate the inaugural outing of the 681st Lord Mayor of the City of London. The procession travels from Mansion House to St Paul’s Cathedral, where the new Lord Mayor is blessed by the Dean of St Paul’s before the procession carries on to the Royal Courts of Justice. There the Lord Mayor swears an oath of allegiance to the sovereign before the Lord Chief Justice and Judges of the Queen’s Bench Division, as enshrined in the charter of King John (the original of which can be viewed at the Museum of London).

The processions then sets off at 1pm on the return journey along Victoria Embankment to Mansion House, where the newly sworn-in Lord Mayor arrives to be greeted by the City Aldermen and livery company Masters in their colourful gowns.

The day culminates in a fireworks extravaganza between Waterloo and Blackfriars Bridges on the Thames from 5pm.