by Lamiat Sabin

BORIS JOHNSON was caught on camera verbally abusing a black-cab driver by telling him to “fuck off and die — and not in that order” — in a video released yesterday.

The mayor of London was cycling home in north London on June 5 when the cabbie shouted: “You’re one of them, mate. That’s what you are. One of them.”

Mr Johnson spewed out the words while cycling on a busy road after midnight.

The driver retorted: “Yeah, bollocks, I hope you die.”

The clip, filmed by a passer-by, deals another blow to his deteriorating relationship with black-cab drivers, amid his apparent inability to tackle smartphone apps such as Uber that offer cheap taxis, not subject to the same level of regulation, and the mushrooming of new minicab drivers, with about 1,000 per month taking to London’s roads.

A “close ally” of Mr Johnson claimed: “I believe this particular cabbie is a serial heckler. He offered Boris a few choice words.
“Boris felt obliged to offer him a few in return. And off they went.”

Experienced cabbies, who pay inflated charges for overheads after undergoing “the Knowledge” test of every single road in the capital, have long campaigned for the London mayor to do something about minicabs undercutting their prices.

Mr Johnson, now also MP for Uxbridge and South Ruislip, told them at a London Assembly meeting last month that his hands were tied by the law and “market forces.”

But it has been revealed that Rachel Whetstone — who is married to Prime Minister David Cameron’s friend and former senior advisor Steve Hilton — was appointed Uber’s senior vice-president of policy and communications in Britain last month.

Mr Johnson is said to be a close friend of the couple, according to the Evening Standard.

London Taxi Drivers’ Association general secretary Steve McNamara wrote in Taxi magazine that he hoped the link between Uber and the Tory government was a “coincidence,” rather than a driving factor in laxer regulation and licensing.

Mr Johnson rejected calls from Liberal Democrat London Assembly member Caroline Pidgeon to revoke Uber’s licence due to globally reported safety concerns, including that some drivers paid the minimum wage have not undergone background checks and lack insurance.

Save Our Black Taxis campaigners have planned a protest outside the Transport for London offices on July 31.