Daily Diary

Taxi rebate

Posted 8/05/2008 by The Daily Diary

The Diary was recently subjected to a typically invective-laden tirade from one of London’s venerable taxi drivers, although for once thankfully not about immigration, why Ken Livingstone is a communist or the merits of the Chelsea back four. The driver was bemoaning the apparent spate of belt-tightening that has resulted in a number of City firms cracking down on black-cab usage in a bid to free up cash for associate pay-rises (or not, as the case may be).

Which may explain an incident your correspondent observed on a bus outside the offices of one very large City firm the other day, when a serious-looking chap in pinstripe got into a shouting match with the driver because he wouldn’t let him off between stops. The poor darling had to – you won’t believe this – actually wait for the next stop before walking all of 20 yards back to his office.