Taxi Driver Online

GBC you ask how do i think your racist.Quite easy ive read your posts.You keep alleging The GMB is corrupt keep it up we wont sue you until it suits us.Bed and breakfast in Westminster should suit.Interested that you bought a vehicle from Fowlers be pleased to hear the details or is this another of your lies.Keep it coming .

He is winding you up. Fowlers don't supply TX's, and no-one, at the mo, supplies Metros.

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IDFIMH

Evening Standard (London)

October 27, 1993, Wednesday

HEADLINE: Taxis protest over licensing law proposals

BYLINE: Luke Blair

MINISTERS were heading for fresh confrontation with drivers of London's black cabs today after announcing a new bid to sort out the licensing laws.

Transport minister Steven Norris has launched a consultation document promising to untangle the current complex controls on taxis, mini-cabs and the London hackney carriage.

But he has refused to treat the capital as a special case, saying: 'There is a strong argument for having as near to a single framework as possible for the whole of England and Wales.'

London's cabbies have been warning for years that the Government's intention to straighten out the present system should treat them differently. They argue that with more expensive vehicles, different fare regimes and tougher standards for safety and street-knowledge, they should not be lumped with other drivers of, for example, unlicensed mini-cabs.

Mr Norris's Green Paper has already been greeted with derision by the London Taxi Drivers' Association, representing the capital's 22,000 licensed cabbies.

'This is a joke,' said vice-chairman Bob Oddy. 'It poses all the old questions and offers no answers. '-It puts off a decision yet again and is a complete waste of time.'

And Tory MP Vivian Bendall, who has championed the black cabs' cause, said: 'London is very different from the rest of the country and should be treated as such, otherwise we could see the end of the black cab.' Mr Bendall said he would also oppose extending into London the two-tier licensing system which operates in the rest of the country - one of the options in the Green Paper. But the MP conceded one of the other options - bringing the rest of the country up to London's standard - could offer the best solution.

Mr Norris has given a nod to the capital's special problems, pointing out that there has been little legislative change since the early 19th century.

But while inviting views on the 'green badge' licensed cabs which ply central London and Heathrow and the comparatively few 'yellow badge' cabs working the suburbs, the document offers no guidance on the mini-cabs - between 40,000 and 60,000 - which dominate.

Taxi drivers, trade organisations, local authorities, police, safety campaigners and members of the public have until next March to submit their views.
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Actually fowlers do sell second hand TX's

Well i'm shaking in my shoes now Terry.

Lucky i'm with the LTDA legal scheme!

It still does'nt alter the fact your a homophobic bigot though.

Now now ladies put those handbags down

https://youtu.be/hf7aYM62xVI?t=206

And how many more people were raped or sexually assaulted because of that chat on the stairs of number 10?

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IDFIMH

Precisely what I was thinking

Portillo was a transport minister around 1987/88, and drivers weren't licensed till c. 2003.

So that's maybe a fifteen year gap - I wonder how much bad stuff that went on that could have been prevented in that period if Margaret Thatcher had played ball?

Just goes to show the power of lobbies, though. And I'd put money on Portillo not sounding quite so flippant about it all if he'd been grilled about it at the time. Or, if he was, bet he didn't put the abandonment of the proposal in those terms