Boycott Addison Lee

Indeed - from the Times (quoting rather than linking as it's behind a paywall)

Addison Lee is to lose its lucrative Government contract, it emerged last night, hours after the taxi company was barred from illegally urging its drivers to use bus lanes.

In a major blow to the private hire company, a Whitehall source revealed that its deal to ferry around officials and ministers will not be renewed after it expires next month.

John Griffin, the company’s multimillion chairman and major Tory donor, launched a provocative campaign this month instructing his drivers to use London’s bus lanes in an intensification of his war with the black cab trade. He said that he could not “allow our customers to continue to be victims of this unfair and discriminatory treatment”.

Mr Griffin also stoked anger last week by suggesting that cyclists have to expect to be hurt by drivers if they take to the roads.

Addison Lee currently has a contract run by the Department for Work and Pensions, which sees it used by several departments across Whitehall.

Parliamentary answers reveal that Michael Gove’s Department for Education alone has handed the company £2,370 on ministerial trips and £34,569 for ferrying around civil servants between August 2011 and January 2012.

The Whitehall source confirmed the company would not be considered as part of a new central Government system for private car hire. He added, however, that the decision not to renew the contract had nothing to do with Mr Griffin’s instructions to his drivers and was a “coincidence of timing”.

Mr Griffin was also instructed in the High Court yesterday not to repeat his offer to pay any fines incurred by drivers for defying the ban on driving in bus lanes. His move provoked claims that it would clog the lanes for buses and make them dangerous for cyclists.

After an application by the Transport for London highways authority, Mr Justice Eder also told the company to remove the law-defying call to drivers from its website. However, it was not forced to withdraw the notice altogether.

Leon Daniels, Transport for London’s managing director for surface transport, said that Addison Lee’s instruction to its drivers “was irresponsible and at odds with its position as a private hire operator”.

“Bus lanes enable buses to move around the capital efficiently carrying more than six million passengers a day,” he said. “We maintain that allowing tens of thousands of private hire vehicles to drive in bus lanes would impact on the reliability of our bus services, and risks inconveniencing our customers.”

The High Court did, however, order the courts to speed up Addison Lee’s application for a judicial review of bus lane regulations, which was greeted as a “great start to our campaign” by Mr Griffin.