Taxi Driver Online

March 11, 2008 Tuesday

Coleman fails to curb taxi spending

Times Series

Barnet and Camden Assembly Member Brian Coleman has been labelled a "hypocrite" after running up a further £4,157 in cab bills over the last nine months.

The figures released by the Greater London Authority last week take the deputy chairman's total taxi expenses since April 2004 to £17,204.59 - nearly six times that claimed by London Mayor Ken Livingstone, whose bill for the same period was £2,887.01.

The latest expenditure, covering the period between April 1 and December 31, 2007, accounts for nearly half the entire cab account of the 24 Assembly Members and Mr Livingstone combined, with the average bill totalling around £370.

Mr Coleman, like all Assembly Members, is entitled to a free travel card for zones one to six so that he can make the majority of his journeys on public transport.

His total taxi bill since April 2004 is more than 48 times the cost of providing annual free bus travel for a child under 16 - a concession that nine Conservative Assembly Members, including Mr Coleman, voted to abolish in February 2007.

Councillor Kathy McGuirk, Labour spokeswoman for the environment, said: "Brian Coleman wants to scrap free bus travel for school children, while expecting the council tax payer to cough up £14,000 for his cabs. It's Tory hypocrisy of the worst kind."

Mr Coleman declined to comment over the latest figures.

But when confronted about his spending last October he said: "I am not going to apologise. I am the hardest working member of the assembly."
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Good old Brian

He hates Livingston as much as I do. People on here would like Brian Coleman, he's single handedly removed every speed hump that ever existed from the roads of Barnet in North London.

Guess what? The Traffic flows better, and the accident rate went down.

HE TIPS WELL TOO

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FORUMS ARE A GOOD PLACE TO LET OFF STEAM ! DONT TAKE LIFE TO SERIOUSLY ..

Did you let him know you where buying a TX2 then