UBER BAN IS ONLY FARE

Uber is cheap, convenient and will take you wherever you want, whenever you want (without the “Nah, not going east love” riff of too many cab drivers).

However, despite all of that, I’m delighted it now faces losing its licence in London.

Just because a company shoves a dotcom after its name and gets a bunch of teenagers to design it a fancy app does not mean it doesn’t have to play by the same rules as everyone else.

If the local cab firm at the bottom of the road refused to help police enquiries into theft, rape and all sorts we’d want it shut down.

If it wasn’t properly checking its drivers we’d want it punished. So Uber needs to get its house in order and then its cars back on the road.

Uber – backed by billions of Saudi money – is intent on wiping out all competition to create a monopoly, at which point it can charge what it wants.

But we cannot help them achieve that by allowing them to operate outside our normal laws.

For too long our authorities have appeared as intimidated by the digital economy as your great-granny confronted with a smart phone.

These may be new technologies, but they must be governed by old rules.