Don’t let Uber go. Remember how risky cabs used to be?

Last week, I went with the Daughter and two of her friends to see a wondrous Jesus Christ Superstar in Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre. You know that fluffy cloud you float out of a great production on? Well, mine was rapidly losing altitude as I fretted about how to get to King’s Cross. A black cab was unlikely at that time of night. I needn’t have worried. One of the girls tapped her phone and, in under five minutes, an Uber driver with an immaculate car and manners to match, pulled up on the other side of the road. I was swiftly deposited at the station, the girls were taken safely home and all for about 12 quid.

I was seriously impressed by the ride-sharing app, which my daughter and her twentysomething peers use all the time. Trust me to fall for its charms just as Transport for London announces it won’t renew Uber’s licence because of a “lack of corporate responsibility”.

Yes, I know we are supposed to be worked up about the company’s shocking failure to take sexual assault charges against its drivers seriously. And that TFL warned Uber that background checks on thousands of its drivers were invalid. Rules and regulations are not just for the little people.

Still, I can’t help comparing this trackable, reasonably priced service with the minicab I used when I was 20. A Nissan Sunny of impenetrable gloom whose driver was always stoned, which may have helped him gain the impression I was keen to be his girlfriend. He got my number from the minicab office and would call at odd times.

Would this driver have passed a “background check”? His in-depth knowledge of Pentonville Prison, which he always pointed out, suggests not. If TFL is holding Uber to the high standard of the capital’s minicabs then it is sorely deluded.

As a parent, I am delighted that my girl can be picked up and dropped off at the door. If Uber loses its licence for good, that can only be bad for the safety of young women.