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Author Owen Jones claims a taxi driver shouted at him: “I f***ing love it when you cyclists die” after a near miss in central London.

The left-wing journalist and activist alleges the the driver hurled the comment at him, prompting him to share an account of the row on Twitter.

The driver apparently also told Mr Jones, 32, to “go and play with some f***ing traffic lights”.

To which the Labour supporter – who backed Jeremy Corbyn in his leadership bid – responded: “Mate I will out this on Twitter”.

The Guardian columnist claims the taxi driver grinned and said: “Good, I’ll smile for the camera”.

Mr Jones recounted the ordeal in a series of tweets last night, accompanied by a picture of the driver in question and his vehicle.

He wrote: “This was him literally smiling for the camera, by the way, when I said I'd put it on Twitter. So I have his consent.”

He added: "and no. He wasn't foreign."

Many of Mr Jones’ half a million followers leapt to his side, slamming the driver and encouraging him to report the incident to the police.

TV host and fellow London cyclist Jeremy Vine, who has previously posted videos of his confrontations with drivers on Facebook, said he could believe Mr Jones’ tale.

“This is absolutely typical, disgusting road hog behaviour,” he said.

Steve McNamara, General Secretary of the Licensed Taxi Drivers Association told the Standard: “It is not yet clear whether the driver in question was an LTDA member, and without a badge number we can not determine this.

"However, we would condemn such shocking and reckless behaviour – by any cabbie – for putting himself and other road users at risk. The driver in question has put their license in jeopardy and we would urge TfL as the regulator for our industry to undertake an investigation.”

Helen Chapman, TfL’s General Manager of Taxi and Private Hire, said: “We are taking these allegations very seriously and have launched an investigation into the incident.”