AND AN UBER THING

Uber’s loss of its London licence is important because it signals new courage on the part of authorities in the UK to say “enough” to innovative businesses like Uber, Airbnb and the rest. Uber’s servile approach to London Mayor Sadiq Khan is a sign this company realises, at last, that it’s not above the law. My guess is they’ll kiss, make up and Uber will get a licence renewal. The outrage of Guy Hands, government Minister for London and of ½ million Londoners who’ve signed a petition supporting its return suggests that Uber is more than a cab company. It’s a flag bearer for the new world of innovation.

But Uber is a dodgy concept with a disgraced ex CEO, virtually no assets, no investment in its drivers, a global valuation which shrunk last week to under $50 billion and which paid just £400k in UK tax last year on a turnover in excess of £115million. It has a shocking history of ignoring regulations and is banned in countries like Denmark and Italy and in parts of Australia, Canada and America.

But what I hadn’t realised was that in a recent piece of research on transport-providers its reputation had recently dropped to just above Southern Rail. Uber has become the Jimmy Savile of transport; untouchable because it appeals to so many people yet recognised by an equally large number as being on the wrong sign of ethics. I can hear the cry “one million customers in London can’t be wrong” which has a whiff of “Jim’ll Fix It is too popular to criticise”.

I can also sense the schadenfreude slant to the story. Many of us like to see the self-important and successful brought down. Looking at a different market the recent demise of Bell Pottinger was profoundly appealing to many in the PR industry. Is Uber another Bell Pottinger? Is Uber a Coriolanus of a brand? Is Uber a sign of the frailty of the techno-innovators? Are we in for a round of “I-told-you-so’s”?

Maybe instead we should take a long hard look at our transport infrastructure with Uber being forced to revise its way of working. And what happens to those 40,000 Uber drivers? It seems an awful lot of drivers (mathematically there’s one driver per 25 customers). And they aren’t Uber drivers as such. There’s no contract, no employment rights. No they are just freelancers who happen to drive under the Uber umbrella. If everyone worked the Uber way we’d be in a big mess.

But Uber is very cheap. It doesn’t seem to worry those petitioners asking for their Uber back that it may be very cheap for a very good reason.

In the end of course there’ll be a pragmatic solution.

Like that suggested by a story I read about a man acquitted in court of a bank robbery charge. As he left the dock he asked the Judge:

“Does that mean I can keep the money?”