Hackney private minicab driver Victor Hume is known, apparently, as the Robin Hood of the private-hire vehicle industry - a modern-day folk hero and mahatma of customer service who has clocked up a Hackney record in parking and stopping fines (no small achievement) for stopping his cab on red routes and in bus lanes to drop his passengers home.

Hume, who will be 71 in March, says that he feels he's good for at least another decade of torturing parking wardens. 'I am fit,' he reports, strutting about the stage at Conway Hall in London's Red Lion Square and flexing his large arm muscles. 'I am very fit.' His audience - perhaps 200 or so private-hire drivers from around London - nods appreciatively and applauds. People here are liking Victor. Everybody here drives a private minicab, or van, for a living, and everybody believes that private-hire drivers should have the same rights as black cabs and buses when it comes to using bus lanes and setting passengers down on red routes.

The private-hire industry is properly regulated now, says Door-to-Door Justice Campaign Organising Committee member Steve Hackworth. The industry co-operated with government to achieve that regulation. Private-hire drivers are a vital part of the public transport system, Hackworth says. They provide an affordable transport option for people who can't afford black cabs. A lot of people who have disabilities use them. They're used by people who are too drunk to to drive their own cars home. And okay, says Hackworth, they're not exactly publicly-owned public transport, but what the hell is these days? The buses are private. Black cabs are private. Private-hire drivers have as much right as other cabbies to make a quid and drop their passengers where they want to go, Hackworth says. Why should their passengers miss out on the transport others enjoy, just because they're disabled, or poor?

Hear, hear says Simon Hughes, MP for North Southwark and Bermondsey.

Last seen championing hypocrisy in the Lib Dem leadership race, Hughes' presence near a campaign doesn't necessarily say a great deal for it. He certainly has to lay it on to get past the doubts of this crowd. 'It's a tribute to the (private minicab) industry that it's now seen as a respectable voice [and that it accepted regulation]... it's a very easy thing to say that the private-hire vehicle industry is a private sector thing, but this is no longer the case. You are entitled to recognition in the same way [as black cabs and buses] that have the same status...' Hughes reveals that he's been known to climb into a private hire himself, late at night in Westminster when all the black cabs have been bagged. Simon may say the right thing: unfortunately, nobody wants to hear it from him.

Things improve considerably when Pat Murtagh, a Birmingham private-hire operator, takes the stage. Pat's been in the private-hire vehicle business for 37 years. She saw that there was a demand to be met and she set up a local private-hire cab service that the local people knew and trusted. She made a small fortune doing it. She says that she 'was first in the queue' when the government moved to regulate the industry. '[Regulation] definitely improved the image of the industry. It gives us negotiating power.' Murtagh says the private minicab industry is worth more than £2b a year, and she wants the industry to be part of any Olympics bonanza. 'The government can't afford for the industry not to be working properly. We need to be clearly identified with corporate signage and give the same service [as black cabs].'

Ken Livingstone, it appears, is behind the private-hire industry in its campaign for equal access rights. Mark Watts, the Mayor's Policy Advisor for Transport and Air Quality, speaks on the Mayor's behalf of 'the important role that private care hire can play in sustainable transport, and in helping the disabled and elderly.'

Dawn Butler, MP for Brent South, talks about 'the good service' that private-hire cabs provide for her constituents and people from deprived communities who can rely on the fixed fee private cabs charge and who you can ask for their favourite drivers.

Victor Hume, meanwhile, is planning to up the open combat with Hackney's parking wardens. 'I'm going to take my passengers where they want to go,' he says firmly. 'I'm giving those people a service.' He talks about the day he stopped in the street and helped a blind passenger into the health centre, so that the blind passenger could make his health appointment. Hume helped the passenger inside - and when he came out, there it was - the parking ticket for £100.

The passenger was so upset that he offered to pay the fine for Hume. Hume told him to forget that. 'I told him - Nobody's paying that,' he says. Hume strode off to Hackney Council for what turned out be a fairly short meeting. The Council told him that the fine stood and he'd have to pay it. He still hasn't, though, and he doesn't give the impression that he's planning to. 'I'm giving people a service,' he says. If you're well-off, you can drive your overpriced four-by-four through London and fill the air with its noxious exhaust (we all know how much sustainable transport means to that lot). You can get a black cab if you earn good money. You can live a nice distance from decent facilities if you can afford it. If you don't fit into any of those categories, you can get stuffed. Why is it, says Victor, that it always the people who can't afford access who are punished when they try for it?