Uber ban ends young people’s freedom delusion
If a moderate socialist like Sadiq Khan can carry on like this, just think of the damage Corbyn would do
The Left have finally done it: they’ve overreached. In his transport regulator’s shocking decision to ban the taxi firm Uber from London’s streets, the capital’s mayor Sadiq Khan has not only destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of drivers, revealed himself to be the mere tool of powerful vested interests, and undermined the mobility of the millions of people who use the Uber app as a low-cost, technologically advanced alternative to the old black cab cartel. He has exposed something to which too many young people have been peculiarly blind: we are no longer a free society.
One of the things that must perplex Tories the most about the current state of politics is that the eternal arguments in favour of Conservatism – aspiration, choice and liberty – no longer seem to work. In the Seventies and Eighties, Margaret Thatcher could talk stirringly of private property being a bulwark of individual freedom or about the wickedness of socialism, and millions of voters would respond enthusiastically, many of them young. Now, when they remember that they are the party of capitalism and entrepreneurship, the old language used by Conservatives to explain the benefits falls miserably flat.
Some suggest that this is because the young have no stake in the free market. That is wrong. They are among the most prolific users of all the fantastic technologies that profitmotivated businesses introduce every day, Uber among them. Some voted against Brexit because they feared that it would put at risk their low-cost holidays on ultra-competitive nofrills airlines. Part of the explanation for their justified anger at the rising cost of university is that, as unhappy customers, they recognise they’re getting a bad deal. Such hyperconsumerism would once have been sufficient on its own to place these voters firmly in the Tory column.
The reason young people embrace a Frankenstein’s monster of an ideology, a capitalist statism, is because the liberating benefits of cost-cutting innovations like Uber have permitted them to live under a delusion: that we are economically free. Why are all these Tories banging on about punitive regulation when you can buy almost anything via a few taps on your smartphone? There isn’t much risk to supporting Jeremy Corbyn, they seem to believe, because our freedoms are too solid, our liberties too deep.
This delusion has been exacerbated by the smoke-and-dagger approach of the Left, often operating through quangos and regulators they still dominate, to increasing the purview of the state over the past few decades. There have been no big bang nationalisations, as in the post-war period, and those that Corbyn proposes are in industries that many consider to be broken anyway. Headline income tax rates have come down for many. Instead we have seen a constant, stealthy erosion of our freedoms.
Under the cover of the nicesounding Childhood Obesity Strategy, for instance, the sugar content of the food we buy has been quietly reduced, and calories may be next. New flats must be built with ever fewer parking spaces, so it becomes harder to own a car. Licensing requirements and opaque rules that impact only specific professions or narrow groups of people – such as hairdressers or e-cigarette users – seem too minor to be worried about unless you’re directly affected. Insurance gets more expensive because of tax hikes and mad EU gender equality rules, but after a while we forget that it used to be affordable and wonder why we ended up so poor.
By dramatically banning Uber, Khan has blown the Left’s shameful game and made even more ridiculous his weasel words about wanting London to be “open”. Here we have a crystal clear example of what the Labour agenda – a hatred of employment flexibility, a suspicion of economic dynamism, and above all a belief that customers should always come second to whatever lobby group has their leaders’ ears – actually means for the consumer society: its destruction.
There can be no more pretending. Some will presumably fall for the regulator’s argument that a total ban is necessary to protect the public from the tiny minority of Uber drivers who might be evil enough to abuse their passengers. But for the vast majority, this should be a wake-up call about the true consequences of applied Leftism. And if this is a sign of how much damage a so-called moderate socialist like Khan can cause in London, just think of what Corbyn will be capable of achieving when given the chance on a national scale.