Hiring is handy, but it doesn’t beat ownership

Chinese bicyclesharing firm Mobike has threatened to withdraw its scheme from the streets of Manchester, following a spate of vandalism and theft.

The company hubristically claimed that the bikes, which can be parked anywhere and located through an app, were “vandal-proof ” – but has been proved wrong by the thugs of Manchester. Around 10 per cent of its fleet has reportedly been lost or vandalised every month since its launch last summer. As Mobike rather charitably put it: “Members of the public have been privatising the bikes” (stealing, for those of us who don’t speak PR).

The march of the sharing economy has revolutionised how consumers approach everything from handbags and party dresses to housing, transportation and pets. Sharing platforms have unlocked previously unthinkable opportunities, particularly for the young. One friend offloads almost her entire wardrobe each month, reselling online and buying next month’s fashions with the proceeds. Even critics of the trend tend to find the savings and experiences of Airbnb and Uber irresistible.

We should expect the odd hiccup. The technology enabling these exchanges hasn’t always kept pace with the speed of roll-out – and the sharing economy hinges on trust, which cuts both ways. Mobike’s upfront costs and penalties for misuse appear naively low: initially, cyclists could pedal the bikes anywhere for just 50p for 30 minutes with a £1 deposit, coupled with a low-ish fine of £20 for parking bikes outside specified zones. With hindsight, such faith in the demos seems misplaced.

Yet Mobike’s woes might betray a wider problem. We are told that sharing is good for the environment and promotes sustainability, that millennials do not want to be trapped by expensive belongings such as houses and cars. There is some truth to this, but sharing can also be a second-best alternative, rooted in necessity, not freedom of choice.

When you inhabit Britain’s basket-case of a planning system and can only afford to live in a pokey flat with housemates, eschewing possessions makes eminent sense.

Some attribute the growth of the “experience economy” to millennial fatalism about ever being able to save the funds for a housing deposit. With the prospects of ownership so futile, the logic goes, why not splurge on that next holiday?

Stiff competition for housing has other, less visible, effects. Despite the popularity of pet ownership across the UK, landlords and agents typically restrict the right to keep pets, which has surely contributed to the explosion of services such as borrowmydoggy. com. But who, given the option, would choose these things over a place and a puppy of their own?

Possession of a car endows owners with their own particular ecosystem and personal pod of freedom, comfort and security, a world away from the horrors of draughty coach stations, late trains and garrulous cab drivers. For all Uber’s conveniences, and the predictions of a driverless car takeover in the coming years, this feeling of autonomy may prove hard to replace.

Be it a rust-bucket recently dredged from the Manchester Ship Canal or a monthly walk with a borrowed dog, hiring is undoubtedly handy

– but it rarely compares to ownership.

Dia Chakravarty is away

In the miasma of contradiction and incoherence that now envelops the Government’s Brexit strategy, may I ask a simple question? Why is everybody pretending that we have a choice between the Prime Minister’s Chequers plan and no deal? Let’s remind ourselves of the salient fact here: Chequers, as it stands, was definitively, categorically, unambiguously thrown out by Michel Barnier, who pronounced it beneath consideration because its basic assumptions breached the sacred principles of the European Union. OK?

We do not – repeat, do not – have the liberty to decide whether we will persist with Theresa May’s proposal as outlined at that infamous country retreat. What was offered to the Cabinet then is off the table, out of the running, cast into historical oblivion. The EU Commission declared it not a viable option in such ringing terms that its essential premises would have to be reformulated to make it worthy of discussion.

So the term “Chequers”, as in Messrs Johnson and Rees-Mogg’s rather catchy “Chuck Chequers” slogan, is just a cipher: a euphemism for soft