The Casey Column
By
Wayne Casey“Arm yourselves, and be ye men of valour, and be in readiness for the conflict; for it is better for us to perish in battle than to look upon the outrage of our nation and our altar. As the Will of God is in Heaven, even so let it be.” Quotation from the book of the MaccabeesDear God
I write a few short weeks before the National Taxi Association Annual General Meeting and Conference in Manchester. I strongly urge you to urge your flock to make enquiries and attend. It’s not as if much is at stake, it’s only their livelihood.
If they have any interest in their business I suggest you not only urge them to attend the NTA conference, you should also ask with them to read the response of Carlisle Taxi Association (residents of your own county) to the Law Commission, its available online at:
http://www.national-taxi-association.co ... er-203.pdfAs mentioned in the paper, the Law Commission were given the political objective of deregulation by the Department for Transport and Government in being the principle behind new law. Ironically the commission cite localised political decisions which lead to regulation in their document; it doesn’t seem to have struck home the apparent duplicity of their role in respect of the political objective they were tasked.
In many respects, and being omnipresent you already know this, the object of trade hostility is to a degree misplaced (thou shalt not hate). The vented fury is upon the political stooges in the guise of the Law Commission, trade anger should be more readily aimed at both the DfT and Government. So whilst the Law Commission can perhaps be blamed for being the ones who are about to pull the trigger; the politicians and accompanying bureaucrats from Whitehall are more than culpable, they are the ones whom are financing, legislating and responsible for the assassination.
In all too many respects what we have seen so far is rather barmy, we have one part of the cab trade “running off in all directions”, whilst the majority are either too stupid or too pathetic to do anything, but please do not allow my thoughts to cloud your judgement. History suggests the English have always had a rather brutal streak; whilst our 1847 act was being drafted, Ireland was suffering from what the English describe as the Potato Famine; the Irish, rather more simply call it ‘The Great Hunger’. The Englishman, a Whitehall bureaucrat by the name of Charles Trevelyan oversaw a policy in Ireland of ‘Laissez-Faire’ which is unsurprisingly a French expression (that’s the godless bunch across the channel), the dictionary dot com website describes “the practice or doctrine of non-interference in the affairs of others, especially with reference to individual conduct or freedom of action”.
In effect he saw government hand outs of food as a blatant distortion against ‘free market’ principles.
As I’m sure you’ll remember, the free market policies were so ridiculous that whist Ireland was effectively producing enough food to feed its own people – they had to export it – there’s little profit in giving food away. The policy was effectively one of genocide – one which led to the death of almost 1.5 million people and the subsequent migration of a further 2 million.
I personally think Trevelyan was barking mad, anyone who stated the following must be;
‘The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people’
He was naturally knighted by Queen Victoria for his efforts.
You’re probably wondering right now, whilst I’m telling a decent story, what the hell has all this got to do with taxis and the law commission. Well, great one, it is an accepted fact that the underlying principle of modern day capitalism is the policy of ‘Laissez-Faire’ – ‘Leave us be’, a policy that actually pre-dates the terrible events of the late 1840’s in Ireland and originates from the ‘enlightenment’ of the 1700’s.
In other words, they are are changing laws established shortly after the ‘enlightenment’ in order to instigate a policy driven from the enlightenment – weird or what?
The rigidity of bureaucrats such as Trevelyan, people whom fundamentally believed the market would cure all, were seemingly at a loss when it didn’t deliver – indeed -when it didn’t deliver – they appear to have blamed the one person who can’t actually present himself to any tribunal – God (that’s you but they also blamed the Irish for being lazy and breeding too much).
If we spin forward 160 years – it seems the same principles of ‘Laissez-Faire’ are still at work with the bureaucrats of our civil service – it’s as if the lessons learned even as recently as the world banking collapse didn’t happen. The failures of taxi deregulation in Ireland and in most of this country don’t seemingly matter – because the policy of the market being the best deliverer is surely right (the fall back position seems to be one of when it’s proved wrong – just blame god)..
Despite law commission thinking, in some areas repeat business and service are not actually essential; in a place such as London or a seaside town, the business obtained by both taxis and surprisingly private hire is invariably ‘one off’ trade. Whilst there are ‘regulars’, they are vastly outnumbered by ‘one-off’ calls. This appears to be somewhat at odds with the Law Commission belief of market rules– because if you know a customer is going to use you once – why on earth would you be bothered about repeat custom? There is (unsurprisingly) little incentive towards pricing or much in the way of service (particularly if the customer is never going to use you again).
Sadly, it doesn’t seem to have occurred to the Law Commission that what we perhaps have now is about as good as we’re going to get it – indeed – what’s needed are educated / knowledgeable licensing departments that are not overworked by the increasing workload placed on their shoulders by National Government.
What’s needed is the wording of the acts modernised; what’s needed are operators being made accountable for the actions of their serfs (those that buy the Bentley), and most importantly it needs enforcement to be seen as a priority, not a chore which needs done once a month (if we’re lucky). Sadly, what I see as rather important, isn’t quite the same as what the law commission see as important. Seemingly, the crucial thing to them is arguably (okay very arguably), watching your cab trade slowly starve to death (a rather bizarre policy with as described above, historical connotations).
Best Wishes (and thanks for your reprieve last year)
Wayne Casey
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