Tories, Uber, And Corruption

The seemingly unstoppable rise of rider-and-driver matching service Uber continues in London, with so little being done by increasingly occasional Mayor Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson to protect the capital’s black cabs - for whom the costs of getting on the road and remaining there are far higher than Ron Hopeful with his Prius and satnav - that many cabbies’ exasperation with their one-time champion has boiled over.

Whatever Bozza has suggested as a way to assuage cabbies has been too little, and too late, as many of them see fare income fall to levels that are becoming unsustainable. Why the Mayor - and Transport for London (TfL) - have effectively sat on their collective hands and done nothing is becoming clearer, though, as news emerges that Uber may have friends in the very highest places.

While the Guardian reported Bozza’s tinkering around the edges - “Boris Johnson calls for mini-Knowledge for Uber drivers … Mayor speaks out in defence of black-cab drivers and says Transport for London are consulting on language and geography tests for minicab firms” - the Standard’s Londoner’s Diary carried the first suggestion that the Mayor was not acting with as much freedom as he might have liked.

“Why did Boris Johnson, staunch defender of the black cab trade, soften his line on Uber at the London Assembly last month?” asked the author, before citing a conversation one cabby had had with “Grant Davis, chairman of the London Cab Drivers’ Club and a lunch companion of one Boris Johnson, whom he updates on the black cab situation around City Hall” as the source of their rumour. The news was potentially explosive.

“Boris apparently told Grant, who told Wayne who told The Londoner, that he’d been personally told by David Cameron to leave Uber alone”. However, their reasoning was tenuous. “The chat in the cabbies’ rests is that Dave’s good mate is Steve Hilton. And Steve’s trouble-and-strife Rachel Whetstone, also a family friend, happens to be Uber’s newly appointed UK senior vice-president of policy and communications”.

So close, but definitely no cigar. Meanwhile, the Taxi Leaks blog has something rather more significant: “Political organiser and writer Bryn Phillips has made a number of public statements on Twitter regarding political intervention from the Prime Minister and Chancellor in regards to the licensing of Uber London Ltd”, it tells. Phillips has asserted that both Young Dave and his next-door neighbour have been lobbying for Uber.

That’s not just “telling Bozza to lay off”, it’s an accusation of direct lobbying. By the Prime Minister and the Chancellor Of The Exchequer. The post then goes on to note that TfL ignored United Cabbies Group’s offer to share more than 8,000 complaints about Uber with them, before Labour MP Tom Watson intervened - now they welcome a sight of them. Someone at the top of Government needs to make a full and frank disclosure.

Because if they do not, someone else will make the full and frank disclosure for them.