Are we standing by while the trade is destoyed???

While I am out doing my runs and having lots of contact with different taxi drivers, I do try and keep up to date with the issues that concern my future career. I try to read various blogs to do with the Taxi trade and keep an eye on any postings on youtube or elsewhere on the web and what I read dismays and worries me.
The Taxi drivers I have spoken to have all been polite, helpful,honest and all have a good sense of humour, and yet reading the latest news it seems that as a trade we are hell bent on destroying ourselves. I'm not going to say which of the various Taxi organisations are right and which are wrong, but maybe give a different view on the latest issues.
The biggest concern seems to be the complete lack of policing of the private hire companies, they seem to be able to tout where-ever they wish with no fear of punishment, they now have ranks in various London boroughs (although as private hire have to be pre-booked I cannot see how a rank could be lawful?), the Olympics have shown which trade now have the power with all the ranks having gone in Newham and as the Olympic map shows there will be plenty of consideration for private hire over the "proper Taxi's".
How did it ever come to this? The London Black Taxi has been an icon for many many years, regardless of what some in the media think it is still respected, when I tell people that I am doing the Knowledge they are full of admiration for what I am undertaking, they know how difficult it is. So how come that private hire now has this advantage over us?
It is now called private hire but lets be honest it is and always will be mini-cabs, generally old dirty cars, driven by people that don't know where they are going and the drivers don't have to have the same criminal checks that proper Taxi drivers do, so the possibility of being robbed and raped is higher, especially if the driver has just picked the person up from the street so there is no trace of who did the job.
Who is responsible for this? Is it the Black Cab trade organisations, that all seem to have their own agendas, one of which I have been told (so I don't know if it is true) has a seat on the board of TFL yet also is a share-holder in a private hire firm, now I am not going to comment on this apart from to say that a man cannot wear two hats, if this is true then the person concerned needs to either be fighting for the Black Cab trade or fighting for the mini-cabs, there should be transparency with this surely? I never understood why control of the Black Cabs was ever taken away from the Police and handed to TFL from all I have read this seems to be a corrupt organisation that is more interested in making money than policing the whole of the trade. I am sure if the police were still in charge that the queues of touts outside various night-spots would be dealt with.
Is there not a way that all the different organisations that represent the proper taxi drivers can come together and work for and only for the future of the Black Taxi Trade. The trade doesn't belong to you, it belongs to the drivers and has done since it's very beginning, and you are supposed to be safeguarding it for the future, for people like me that want to be part of its future and be part of the greatest Taxi trade in the world.
I know that the various organisations collect "subs" from their members, I cannot believe that an industry as large as ours doesn't have proper lobbying within Parliament, it seems that none of the candidates for the London Mayor have mentioned anything to do with the future of the trade ( apart from a few comments by Brian Paddock) and yet it seems that the whole thing could quite easily fall apart and firms like Addison Lee and Diamond will force the trade into extinction.