‘microphone in the face question’. This is when a Jeremy Paxman-like journalist asks a politician a leading question. How about this one. “Tell

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Tom Cobley, our report on Fred Bloggs who has

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four years and when he started there was forty

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a hundred, and this means he now has to work 100 hours a week and even with that, his income has dropped below minimum wage and is having a knock-on effect with his ability to maintain his vehicle adequately, how do you feel about this?”

You could put the mortgage on the answer containing words like ‘disgraceful’ ‘irresponsible’ ‘unacceptable’, and that not one of them would speak in favour of it or argue that it is providing the public with more vehicles. And yet that is the situation that we work in every day of our working lives, and councillors, and politicians just simply ignore it.

It is a sad fact of life that tragedies and disasters change laws, from the Potters Bar rail crash to the levees breaking in New Orleans, have a similar pattern of warnings from people on the ground being brushed aside by the management,

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after the event and the world and his mother demand action NOW!

We take the view that the taxi and private hire trade are one, maybe two bad crashes away from regulation. If, God forbid a taxi driver was in a multiple fatality crash, that was headline news, and it was later found that he or she had been ‘on the air’ for 17 hours, then recriminations would be heard from all quarters. The taxi or private hire driver involved would be the inevitable scapegoat, and he/she would be

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and politicians alike. If this ever came to pass we can only hope that there would be a voice that questioned the working environment that the driver was working in, and that he/she wasn’t working crazy and for most professional drivers, criminally-long shifts, because of greed, it was out of necessity. The greed, incompetence and complacency lie elsewhere.

Selective Integration

We recently attended a Local Transport Plan (LTP) seminar, and because either one of us or both of us attend conferences and seminars, you do tend to get a bit jaded by the whole process, and it’s only when you start wondering what the buffet will be like - do you realise that it’s not very interesting. It never ceases to amaze us that it doesn’t matter which meeting we go to they all proclaim the clean, green environmentally friendly credentials, and yet there is always a table as you enter piled high with glossy magazines, pamphlets, that must have cleared a rain forest the size of Yorkshire to produce.

That being said, we urge you or your trade representatives to check out your local LTP, because they are making all the right noises with regard to the taxi trade. In case you are unaware of LTPs, they came into being with the passing of the Transport Act (2000) and it placed a requirement on local authorities to implement a

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of LTPs, but that is changing, and someone has realised that a taxi is a public service vehicle, however it is very early days.

After the presentation there was the usual Q&A session, and both of us decided to put the new found love of this indispensable part of public transport (that’s taxis to you and me) to the test. We asked the gushing chairperson, if there is ever a shortage of fuel because of industrial

4

action, will the taxi trade be given preferred status akin to the bus industry. The Chair with a rabbit- in-the-headlights expression, gave two minutes of inspired management b****kspeak, which roughly translated as ‘not a bleedin’ chance’, then we

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of the taxi trade - will we have to comply with tough new European emission standards by 2014, could we tap into the subsidies that the bus industry has at its disposal. This was met

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nervous Chair, and by the time we asked our

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rabbit that we thought he was going to break into a rousing chorus of ‘bright eyes’, which was strange because it was the old chestnut of can we claim VAT back on fuel as the bus industry does without if affecting fare tariffs (it is a little known fact that VAT on fuel is factored in to the fare structure, and on more than one occasion we have been told by ministers that they would only agree to it if fares were reduced).

Wading through the b****kspeak and platitudes, the answer to the three questions would appear to be No, No and err No. However, we stress it is early days and it is worth getting into bed (not in the biblical sense of course) with the LTPs. Just

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the LTP to conduct a demand survey after repeated refusals of the licensing committee - and it worked, a survey was undertaken paid for by the LTP, which duly reported that there was no

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was reintroduced.

A few years ago we ran an editorial entitled ‘An unhappy Marriage in need of a Divorce’ in which we argued that the taxi and private hire trade would be better served being administered by transport authorities because it must always be

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licensing functions and the people who ultimately make the decision are the councillors who are greengrocers, teachers, butchers, bakers, in short people who know sweet FA about the taxi trade. At least we would then be administered by transport people rather than the motley collection that decide our future at present.

Trouble at the Depot

And speaking of buses! One of the major things that came out of the Local Transport Plan seminar is the decline in bus passengers, the LTP produced a number of tables all of them

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wide, with the exception of London of course.

Fares went up six fold with a corresponding collapse of passengers, this despite the fact that millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money has been thrown at the bus industry all to no avail. Is this what the country was promised in 1985 when the bus industry was deregulated? We take the

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fares at reasonable levels is not a threat to the

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A good affordable bus service will get people out

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buses disappear, it would appear so do the people!

Now it seems that Arriva is to be taken over by Deutsh Bahn, that is ironically a German state run enterprise, therefore part of the bus industry may be returned into the state’s hands - that is, as we’ve just said, the German state’s hands. Advocates of globalisation may argue that it is irreversible, however we will point to a chequered history with takeovers and mergers and the ‘rationalisation’(nice phrase for sacking people) is usually borne by those farthest away from head

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the bus industry do not get ‘rationalised’ out of a job (after all do we need more cab drivers?) and that Deutsh Bahn make a success of the buses and turn the fortunes around - but the signs do not look too promising at the moment do they?

Chinese takeaway or saviour?

So LTI have made the National Press yet again! We read in one paper that: Manganese Bronze

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clutches of an overseas predator (predator?), as Shanghai Geely is set to take a controlling stake in the company. Well the Government in this once great country of ours has helped sell off everyone else, and all things British, down the river so why shouldn’t LTI join them, albeit down the Yangzi River?

Isn’t it amazing how events can change in a month? In March editorial of this magazine ‘LTI machinery for sale’ Rob Laidler, Sales Director convinced us that a national newspaper which published the sale of machinery on a website was incorrect and that LTI were working closely with the unions, assuring us that the TX4 would continue to be built at the Coventry plant. Rob also explained that LTI are committed to involving the unions fully throughout the process. So what happened Rob? Apparently, Manganese said it was considering placing new shares with Geely which would increase the Chinese company’s share to 51pc, and that production of TX4 bodies and chassis would be transferred from Coventry to China to cut costs, resulting in around 60 job losses at the Coventry plant. However, the cab will still be assembled at the factory by the remaining 300-strong workforce. John Russell CEO Manganese Bronze defending the decision said:

“this is a turning point for us; we are now at the point where we can think about building a closer relationship with our Chinese partner”. Indeed,

we’re not in a position to criticise LTI/Manganese Bronze for a decision taken to maintain the continuity, future and stability of the TX4 - in actual fact, we take our hat off to them... sometimes harsh decisions have to be made in business, especially in these tough times.

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telephone lines were congested with enquiries from concerned taxi drivers enquiring about the TX4’s fate and what would happen to the World-renowned British iconic London Taxi? Well, in our opinion, and notwithstanding LTI’s

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drop in sales as a result of past problems with the vehicle, compounded by the government and banks’ manufactured economic downturn and aggressive competition from the alternative manufacturers, plus the popularity of the Mercedes Vito Cab, especially in London, we believe the traditional cab will remain an outstanding competitor in an ever-increasing 21st Century competitive marketplace. And as far as the ‘British Icon’ is concerned, since the Chinese Joint Venture with Manganese Bronze, Geely purchased the right to build the TX4 in China for sale in other parts of the world. Okay the TX4, by all accounts, will ultimately be built in China any time soon, but we should remember that Shanghai Geely has helped save a ‘British Icon’ or ‘London Taxi’ from near distinction - a taxicab hailed the world over!

Hope you all enjoy this issue as much as we enjoyed putting it together... till next month David Millward and Derek Cummins, aka the ‘Doom Twins’ Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44