Late last night, 2:45am to be precise, the new head of compliance and part time special constable John Strutton, organised his crack team to take part in a special mission. One of the upmost importance, designed to throw shame on previous incumbents of the job.
Picture the scene.
London's Mayfair:
Clogged to a standstill, a virtual car park. Berkeley Street, Dover Street, Regent Street, Conduit Street, Charing Cross Road and the area around Soho, awash with minicabs, double parked in places with the drivers accosting members of the public shouting "Taxi...minicab".
Shoreditch:
A tangle mess of cars lining the roads around the Old Street triumvirate, where touting is the order of the night. Spurred on by clipboard johnnies openly contravening the act of 1998, plus the more modem approach to touting, the sandwich board man, silently touting to the more literate.
Edgware Road:
Another hot bed of illegal plying for hire. Cars parked outside 24 supermarkets and Shisha bars offering uninsured cheap rides to unsuspecting tourists from the Middle East.
Meanwhile, somewhere in the City:
Our newly promoted head of compliance's hand picked undercover operatives, are on the case. We can rest assured as this highly trained crack team are out saving the public.
Their carefully chosen target.... Licensed Taxis, sitting outside Sushi Samba on Bishopsgate.
(Some God forbid, not wearing a badge)
Just half a mile from the "Zombie Triangle" of Shorditch, our boys are safe in the knowledge that no compliance officer has ever been lost in the course of a Badge & Bill check.
• No tackling of foreign nationals who could be armed terrorists raising money for the cause (not unheard of).
• No tackling the unlicensed sexual predators and crackheads out sourcing their next victim.
• No Tackling drivers from outside London purporting to be licensed minicabs, now escalating to an epidermic level.
No, our new boy's brave team are out saving the cab trade (in their own words) from yellow badges and mechanics, working where they shouldn't.
Well done to this covert brave band of brothers, well done to Sir Peter Hendy, visible policing with the enforcement budget being well spent....not.
Hendy, at the City Hall interview, spoke of matters in hand concerning enforcement...is this what he was talking about?
A spokesperson from Palestra said, "We counted them out....and we counted them back home again".
Well done these brave officers of the compliance team.
News Flash:
Just been informed that one of the compliance team told a driver the main reason for the hit on Sushi Samba was that they had recieved complaints from bus drivers.
Shame there's no bus rout through Coventry Street. 8 police officers there last night and yet minicabs were allowed to illegally park on pavement and tout. Boris's bobbies turning a blind eye.
Amazingly, nothing is ever done about the thousands of complaints from angry Taxi drivers about the congestion caused by empty buses in the Piccaddilly area at night.
