Hopefully this was an extreme case. Mellor must have had an exceptionally bad day, although I don't know why. He had just picked up his partner from Buckingham Palace where she was awarded a CBE.
Wouldn't that put you in a good mood?
He queried the route the driver was taking, leading to the full-scale verbal rant.
What would lead an Oxford-educated QC to act like this? Because he thought he could - and get away with it.
What he didn't know was the taxi driver recorded the whole nasty episode on his phone; otherwise, if he had reported the incident, whose version of events would have been believed, do you think?
The pompous arrogant git you can bet. Mellor now looks like a prize idiot and should be hanging his head in shame.
There has been widespread condemnation of his rant. He finally bowed to growing pressure for a public apology.
What is it about taxi drivers that allow seemingly reasonable people, excluding the drunks, to feel they can be targeted for abuse? We have seen similar episodes reported here in New Zealand too.
I take taxis most weeks in Auckland and Wellington. These days it's hard to spot Pakeha drivers at the public taxi ranks.
They appear to drive for the taxi companies that cater for corporate clients and usually park right outside the terminal building in reserved spaces.
These drivers look to be of retirement age. The other taxi drivers are of mixed ages and from my conversations with some of them, come mostly from the Indian subcontinent.
Most are pleasant and quietly spoken, if they say anything at all. Often they ask where I have I flown in from. When I say Rotorua, they tell me they have visited Rotorua on holiday.
It's a nice place to take family and visitors. In conversation, many tell me where they come from and what their job was before they came to New Zealand. Without exaggerating, I would say most are more educated than many of their passengers.
Driving a taxi through heavy city traffic every day isn't everyone's ideal dream job. But someone has to do it. And most people carrying out that job now especially in Auckland and Wellington were not born in New Zealand.
They speak with an accent and don't look like your average Kiwi. I think this is the problem.
Reports of taxi driver abuse in this country are almost always levelled at the foreign taxi drivers. They can do little about it, unless, as happened recently with the incident in the South Island with the off-duty police woman's rant, it's recorded.
They need the work. New Zealanders would think twice before abusing one of their own who would most likely pull up immediately and order the jerk to get out.
In the case of the foul-mouthed former Tory MP, who had a severe case of "don't you know who I am", it was the taxi driver who showed restraint.
He showed that manners and respect have little to do with the education you receive or your work achievements. It's how you treat people that shows the measure of a man.
-Merepeka lives in Rotorua. She writes, speaks and broadcasts to thwart the spread of political correctness.
