When Churchill was offered the post of Prime Minister by the King he said “I only hope it’s not too late, but I fear it is”.
Never the less, he took on the job at hand, later at dinner making this toast... “Here's to not buggering it up”.
Churchill was a big Taxi user, here he is paying a driver in 1908.
The State Of The Trade
The engagement policy as it stands must be torn up, it has seriously damaged the trades drivers representation. There must be no good behaviour clauses. We should not be going cap in hand to TfL, Mike Brown should be begging us for meetings on our terms, not his.
As it stands now, our trade is on the verge of collapse.
We are in the last chance saloon and we have only two courses to choose from;
1. Fight hard and fight for victory (even if it entails fighting dirty)
2. Or behave, capitulate and die out.
We have a clear view of our enemies now and unfortunately they include some from within our own ranks, who have turned against their own to get into TfLs good books.
The gravy train is now at the end of the line!
It’s time to draw a line in the sand.
Only you can decide on which side you stand;
a) With the rank and file trade fighters?
b) Or with the I’m alright Jack apathetic capitulates?
The first thing Churchill did as coalition PM, was to form a war council.
We need to form our own war council as soon as possible, consisting of 6 members who will represent our 6 representative groups.
No one must be judged solely on what they’ve done or said in the past, but what they can do now and in the future.
I’ve had some gruelling battles with other drivers over the years, and I’ve still got many who despise me over my actions and outspoken personal opinions. Recently, I’ve been accused of changing like the tide, but those who can't change there minds, will never be able to change anything.
Personally, I’ve never held onto a grudge based on historic rhetoric or circumstance and I’ve always believed that everyone is entitled to a second chance.
But the football supporter politics of the members following their org leaders has got to stop. It's time to judge these people by their actions (or non-action in most cases).
To use a phrase from the beautiful sport, come and have a go if you think your good enough.
So What Is Our Aim...You May Well Ask!
I will answer in one word
“Victory”...because without victory, there will be no survival, no trade!
Our policy must be to wage total war on our enemies, if it involves fighting dirty, then so be it.
There must be no surrender, no capitulation and no more negotiated wait and sees.
At present, our entire trade appears to be in full retreat, with morale at an all time low.
Many drivers are deserting the trade they worked so hard to become part of and are going back to former professions. But for many, this job is all they have, all they know.
We must never give up.
We should not flag or fail...whatever the cost, we must defend our trade and never, ever, surrender.
One bond unites us all, musher, journeyman, plus supporting industry workers....we need to fight to save all our jobs.
Negotiation has never worked with TfL so we have to hit them hard where it hurts them the most, and that's their financial potential.
As the great man himself once said, “if we fight, we may not win.... but if we don’t fight, I guarantee, we will lose.
But what ever happens as we go forward now, we must not allow this glorious trade to go down without a fight.
TAXI LEAKS APPEAL :
Was this found in your Taxi....urgent.
TAXI LEAKS EXTRA BIT :
Watch this short video and hear HRH Prince Charles congratulate the London Taxi Trade for its common sense, on being an institution and a great tradition, with a history dating back over 364 years.
7 comments:
Well, we could start by looking at how we are different/ better and advertise those elements. For example, I would imagine we are safer, yet if we are it would be hard to tell, because TFL conflate the Taxi and Private Hire accident data. A suspicious chap might conclude that there is a reason for this, that it’s not an accident, pardon the pun. They present accident data in detail, with information in age of driver in yearly increments, manoeuvre carried out during accident; U-turn etc, but no data in whether or not the vehicle was a Taxi or Private Hire vehicle.
I think we should be lobbying hard for that data because one of the core tenets of TFL is accident / casualty reduction. They spent many many millions in safer roads with cycle lanes etc. If we can demonstrate that Private Hire vehicles cause an exponentially larger risk than Taxis then we would have a nice stick with which to beat TFL. My gut feeling is that, this is the reason they don’t separate out Private Hire and Taxi accident data.
Be nice to find out wouldn’t it
Brilliant article but will drivers of today pick up the batten and run with it let’s hope so? We as a trade need to move on. Many hurtful and sometimes personal things have been said to some individuals? However I hope we can all move forward and work together for a better trade and more importantly a brighter future. I have said many times we need a United trade.
Thing is Jim you have done a lot for out trade but I just feel no one give a toss anymore the Knolwedge will be scraped trust me on that one it just seems with all the unions and trade orgs that we have they just don’t seemed focused you and I know that uber should not of been licensed from day. One but it’s a case of money talks and that’s the only reason uber are still operating today And lyft are coming as well and it’s going to be aimed at suburban drivers yep you heard it right see lots of the apps have consertrated on inner London where as the suburbs have never been looked at until lyft looked at it and there right look every demo has not changed one thing so what is the point GAME OVER
Unfortunately we are stuck in a quandary, on the one hand we have both hands tied behind our backs, because of the high court appeal not taking place before 20th June, which has enabled uber to operate as normal until then. This has given them enough time to capture more of the market share, & as such we are feeling the damage out there. Our main problem we have no legal way to move this forward. My moto is actions speak louder than words but only within the law.
Happy to support a council of war but we MUST have one key demand:
TfL seems determinative judgement on plying for hire.
They don’t want to, PH won’t want to, the learned Mr Kolvin seems not to want a PFH case before he courts.
Perhaps those who are against it informs us why we should demand it.
If TfL refuse then let’s all join together and have a huge campaign.
Well said.
Take the battle to the opposition by blocking them in at the main ranks & Heathrow, including our own who work while others fight on demos.
Demo outside Labour party offices to ask why the flaccid Labour Mayor Khan is so impotent.
Guerilla tactics.
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