THE TIMES

I had that greedy, white chap in the front of my cab

They are, said Baroness Ludford, one of London's "treasures". They are, said Westminster Council, "a gold standard". They are, said Discovery Channel. "the world's favourite taxi, beating New York's yellow cabs and Venice's gondolas.

The globally famous London black cab is, we are told, one of Britain's great institutions, of which we should all be proud. They are the most knowledgeable, courteous and safe taxis in the World.

But like those other chest puffing national institutions - the NHS, The Royal Family, the BBC - it is a triumph of spin over reality.
 

   
       Portrait of a Prat

The truth is the capital's black cabs are a white working class mafia holding the capital, its hard working population to ransom. They have been granted a monopoly right to pick passengers up , and do their utmost systematically to abuse it. They are greedy, selfish and arrogant and ruthlessly achieve higher fares every year: every year the Pathetic Public Carriage Office and the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, give into their one-sided lobbying.

The Office of Fair Trading has launched and inquiry into whether the taxi regulations operate in the public interest, but they clearly don't: the capital has a Rolls Royce taxi service that operates merely in the interests of its drivers, and the few rich travellers on expenses.

They are outrageously expensive, international surveys identifying them as one of the costliest in the World. A six mile journey at night costs around £30.00; going from Heathrow to the centre of town costs a ludicrous £60.00, three times the cost of their rivals, the minicab (but of course they have lobbied against the minicabs picking up at airports).

Fares have been regularly going up three times the rate of inflation, year after year. The cabbies say that they need this because of the increased costs of motoring, but because of rising fuel efficiency costs are falling.

Every time fares go up, more women are forced into the hands of illegal minicabs because they just cant afford or find black cabs. More than 200 women were raped or sexually assaulted by illegal minicab drivers last year, each rape the result of this rotten system.

Cabbies plead poverty in public, but privately admit they can earn £70,000 a year. They can afford vehicles that cost £35,000 each (why do we need such expensive chariots?), and virtually never have to share them. In contrast, cabbies in the rest of England and Scotland routinely time-share their cabs to cut costs. On these incomes, of course they don't want to work nights. But when the Mayor wanted to increase the supply of taxis at night, what was the solution? License more cabs? No - a 40% rise in fares! They demand tips, but unlike other taxi drivers rarely help with luggage. They routinely and illegally refuse to take passengers if it is "out of their way".

If you had succumbed to the cabbies pleading about how hard up they are, ask yourself why taxi drivers come in dynasties. Father to on to grandson, uncles and cousins; whole working class families specialise in it because they know what a good thing they are onto. They just don't want anyone else to know. The cabbies have engineered in London a form of taxi-apartheid; black cab drivers are virtually all white; the far cheaper and less privileged minicab drivers are all non white immigrants.

Ah, they say, we know our way around, the result of up to four years studying the famous "Knowledge". Have they now heard of maps or Trafficmaster? Most Londoners know their way around the city, and such specialist knowledge is entirely superfluous. The truth is, of course, that the knowledge is how they restrict entry and keep their privileged life to themselves.

In contrast, in New York almost anyone can become a taxi driver, and cabs are far more plentiful and cheap and work in the interests of all, not just those on expenses. London's black cabs? Give me the Big Apples yellow cabs any day.