Hailing a taxi and a criminal

In the West Midlands, and no doubt the rest of the UK, if you hail a taxi you may also get a convicted criminal as your driver. Now it could be that convicted criminals make exceptionally good drivers but I would not think that that was the first thought on the minds of the box tickers that dream up all this vetting and checking.

The BBC programme Inside Out West Midlands has revealed that criminals with convictions for offences such as indecent assault and drug dealing are knowingly being licensed to operate as taxi drivers. Knowingly! That's the whole shameful way we are run today, by self-serving bureaucrats who genuflect daily to an altar composed of political (in)correctness, red tape and a desire to run away from responsibility.

This is just a good example of such nonsense. A spokesman for Wolverhampton City Council said the licensing of private hire and hackney carriages was taken seriously. "The council has received no complaints regarding this driver since the private licence was granted in 2006," he said. So no complaints mean it's OK to grant a license to someone who may be tempted to do something indecent or worse.

I always knew the vetting business was a sham. It's got nothing to do with decency but EVERYTHING to do with bureaucrats not being sued by some lunatic under some law of lunacy. Not only have the lunatics taken over the asylum, they are indistinguishable from the lunatics who ran it in the first place.

A taxi driver should be viewed by the public as being someone in an honourable position. Sounds high fullutin', I know, but having been involved in the taxi business at one time I can see how the public come to expect low service if they think all taxi drivers are ex-cons. Now I am not against someone with a criminal conviction obtaining work. However, a sense of proportion needs to be adopted. Wolverhampton Council have obviously lost the plot, with proportion being a word they cannot comprehend.

Taxi driving is a vital service in a modern economy. It is a business creating thousands of jobs and serving people day and night. Customers need to know that their driver is properly licenced and that all insurances are paid. Taxi drivers need to know that we respect their business and their services.

When it comes to a general election I hope we can vote in people who will get rid of all these wretched box tickers and collectivist backsliders. Otherwise we will just carry on with this parlous existence of having the politically incorrect muck up our lives.