Oddy Out, Mac the Hood In..By Thomas the Taxi.

Stories of Bob Oddy's demise have been rife in the shelters and on the ranks for a couple of weeks. We were told that after an emergency board meeting to discuss the deluge of membership resignations, the General Secretary of the LTDA Mr Bob Oddy was asked to step down. Rumour had it, Bob's outburst about the Olympic fare hike was thought by many members to be the last straw which crashed the phone lines at Taxi House with resignation requests.

"Transport for Mr Oddy at gate"

It has now been confirmed in Taxi Magazine (known in the trade as the Comic, because of the amount of fictional stories it contains), that Bob is to go on Friday this week, clutching a brown envelope containing a large slice of the Org's reported £4M savings.


At first, the trade breathed a sigh of relief until it was pointed out that Bobs protege Steve MacNamara, was to take over the role.


John, an LTDA member of 40 years said " The final straw for me was when I read on the Anderson Shelter that Bob Oddy was a non executive board member for a company wholly owned by a large minicab operator, that's disgusting."
John continued " I didn't realise that the set up of the LTDA management was so similar to the Politburo in Russia. Apparently the board vote in an executive committee, who then vote among themselves (all four of them) to set policy and elect their leader. Sort of jobs for the boys. After that no member is consulted. Its just wrong!".


A New Beginning? 
This is a wonderful chance for MacNamara to unite the trade by demanding a fairer engagement policy with LTPH. Bob always said he would not sit at the same table with the RMT and was also said to be against the UCG being accepted as a representative trade group.


It will be interesting over the coming weeks to see if the dirty tricks, lies and propaganda printed weekly in the LTDA's rag, finally stops.


For the sake of a trade under a massive attack, I hope Steve takes the sensible route and doesn't become Bob Oddy no2.