Proving hard for Ken Livingstone to get cabs

From Saturday's Telegraph news that London's black taxi drivers are taking a political position...

"Brave is the man who tries to tell a London cabbie to keep his political views to himself, but Mandrake hears that the apparatchiks at Transport for London have just ordered them to stop distributing receipts bearing the words "Back Boris".

Our Mr Johnson is undoubtedly the cabbies' favourite to replace Ken Livingstone as mayor of London when the election is held on May 1, and, what is more, a gentleman who conveyed me from Victoria to the West End said he and his colleagues are now refusing to stop for Ken.

"It's against the rules I know but when we see him outside City Hall we just put our feet down," he told me. "I have had him in the back of my cab once and that was only because I hadn't recognised him. I slammed the partition shut because I couldn't face listening to him."