The Casey Column
By
Wayne Casey (LL SC) The views expressed in this column have very little to do with the National Taxi Association To follow me on twatter Tweet….UK_NTA
The curse of Oliver Cromwell
I do my best to stay out of the politics of the London cab trade, there are so many trade bodies the only one seemingly missing is the Judean People’s Front (splitters!). But sometimes it becomes impossible not to say anything.
Last year for example, I had a little pop at London’s private hire representatives, they told the transport select committee a load of cr*p about how good the London system of licensing was and how there had never been anyone caught illegally doing anything.
But I digress. When I first started writing for taxitalk, me and the editor had a brief discussion about Oliver Cromwell (a fascinating conversation obviously). A photograph of Cromwell’s statue had appeared in the magazine, I explained whilst some readers might be completely ignorant of what Cromwell stands for and others will support what Cromwell stood for, a proportion will be horrified to see the murderous old b*stard in a cab magazine. (I leave you to decide which camp I’m in).
Cromwell was directly responsible for genocide, rape and torture committed in both Drogheda and Wexford, his regime was responsible for the legalised theft of Catholic-owned land.
“To hell or Connacht” was the stark choice given. It would be easy to suggest his invasion of Ireland was Parliament’s way of honouring the debt of the Civil war, yet what occurred was far beyond the ethnic cleansing which we witnessed in the Balkans.
The supposed great Parliamentarian went on to dissolve parliament and as history tells us, he led a military dictatorship.
So when I see a banner of the United Cabbies Group, albeit perhaps innocently, declare they are ‘Oliver Cromwell’s Army’, I do rather despair.
To put this into a historical context, Cromwell and his men were responsible for around half a million deaths in Ireland either by sword, plague or famine, about one third of the population died. They transported many others to work on English plantations in the West Indies and America; they were subsequently sold as slaves. In percentage terms his misdeeds by far exceed the excesses of Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein, arguably, Cromwell was in the same league as Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin.
Unitary Disunity in Cheshire West? For those of you read this column and what I write, and judging from the letters / emails of complaint – the number is growing. You will be aware I have told of the nightmare which is Durham.
Where once there were 7 local authorities making up County Durham (Chester-le-Street, Derwentside, Easington, Sedgefield, Teesdale, Wear Valley and Durham City) now there is one. Where there were once 7 different taxi licensing policies, now there is one.
Mayhem has occurred, just like some in the cab trade said it would. The honey-pot area, Durham City, is crammed full of taxis. There is much talk of parking enforcement officers being sent out to issue those nasty cab drivers with parking tickets.
To add salt, because some local authorities are like that, the formerly regulated areas (Durham & Chester-le-Street) are now part of the deregulated taxi policy.
The echoes of madness appear to be continuing, this time in Cheshire West.
Cheshire West comprises of three former local authorities (Ellesmere Port and Neston, Chester and Vale Royal), the council retained the same licensing areas after it became a unitary authority and maintained the same policies for each zone. This however is to be reviewed and the council is carrying out a consultation exercise.
The question is…… will the lessons of Durham be learned?
Complete the questionnaire at
http://www.cheshirewestandchester.gov.uk/taxiconsultation CRB Checks Various stakeholders (the NTA included) have been campaigning for a good number of years that all licensed drivers should have enhanced CRB checks.
The home office made an announcement during January that local authorities would now be able to request enhanced checks for all taxi and private hire applications. A copy of the announcement is available on the NTA website;
http://www.national-taxi-association.co.uk/?p=2342 Being a particularly awkward sod I would point out that many local authorities have for many years been requesting enhanced CRB checks, bearing in mind the announcement, this presumably means they have been doing so illegally.
Of course nobody will give a sh*t about this illegality, except of course you’re a person who has been falsely accused of an offence and subsequently been proven innocent by a court and the comments arrive from a chief constable on a CRB form. Basically saying they think you did it anyway.
What is the right of appeal against a council who has presumably obtained information illegally and then refused a license on the basis that the information no longer makes a person fit and proper?
Facing facts, I’m not sure if the Birmingham 6 ever wish to drive cabs in the UK, but the chances are their enhanced CRB checks would come back from a chief constable basically informing the local authority they were suspected of blowing up pubs in Birmingham.
Stupid taxi drivers – stupid councils – stupid passengers – stupid everybody? In the weeks leading up to Christmas a number of local authorities announced they had joined a scheme whereby the customer, from something called an iphone, could press a few buttons and check whether or not the vehicle and driver were licensed.
Great idea huh? The registration number is typed in on a person’s phone it will tell them if the vehicle is licensed, the type of licence and the make and model of the vehicle.
It also sends a copy of this information to nominated friends and family by email.
“At the same time, the licensed driver will get an email with your username only, so they too know that if anything happens to them the journey is traceable. It prevents a problem before it exists.”
Like most things I have problems with this new invention. Apart from the obvious thought that whoever is selling it seems to be using the basis of the driver being a salivating monster.
Primarily, it very probably breaks data protection laws. In respect of private hire, this is certainly the case – in respect of hackney carriages it probably is – although many councils put their registers on the internet (again a highly dubious practice as the 1847 act merely states the register should be held in a book).
Secondly but not really a problem with the invention, if councils actually stopped issuing licenses to certain individuals who shouldn’t be driving taxis and private hire vehicles anyway, it wouldn’t be deemed necessary.
Shamsul Haque, a now former licensed London Private Hire driver with a string of criminal convictions, received a license despite being a paranoid schizophrenic who admitted the manslaughter of his wife, by strangling. I’m, sorry for my French, but is that isn’t one massive f*cking clue that the guy shouldn’t have been licensed what would be……the boss TFL’s freshly decapitated head enclosed with the application form?
Indeed, if the police and TFL had done their jobs properly in respect of John Worboys, how many women might have been saved from his depravities?
The list could go on. The events in Peterlee over New Year, where a licensed driver seemingly snapped and murdered three people before killing himself actually had his guns taken off him (before being returned) a couple of years prior, the reason was that he apparently told his family he was going to kill himself. How was he considered ‘fit and proper’? If a council has to consider the basis of fit and proper, which seems to be asking themselves the question of whether or not they’d trust their nearest and dearest to be left alone with the person they are licensing, how the hell was this guy or indeed, Worboys licensed?
I’m fairly sure it isn’t just me wondering about these things. It can’t be. A bloke threatens to use his shotgun to blast his brains over a wall and nothing happens, yet another gets 3 penalty points for speeding and gets a license suspension?
Councils seemingly issue taxi and private hire licenses to people who not only cannot speak English, they can’t actually write in English either – which would ordinarily raise the question of how they managed to get a license if they couldn’t fill in an application form – except of course we can’t say that because the equal rights people will jump down on us like a tonne of bricks.
Till next month
Wayne Casey
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