The BBC reports,
Uber spared from London ban despite ‘historical failings’
Uber has secured its right to continue operating in London after a judge upheld its appeal against Transport for London (TfL).
The ride-hailing giant has been granted a new licence to work in the capital, nearly a year after TfL rejected its application over safety concerns.
It ends uncertainty for the 45,000 drivers who use the taxi app in London.
Westminster Magistrates’ Court said Uber was now a “fit and proper” operator “despite historical failings”.
Snip
Mayor of London Sadiq Khan said TfL was “absolutely right” not to renew Uber licence last year but acknowledged the company had “made improvements”.
However, he added: “I can assure Londoners that TfL will continue to closely monitor Uber and will not hesitate to take swift action should they fail to meet the strict standards required to protect passengers.”
Remember this from 2017?
The Mayor’s previous two attempts to ban Uber from London were unpopular with Londoners in general, and particularly unpopular with groups that normally vote Labour. Uber is a godsend for people living in non-posh places where black cabs do not venture, and for people who cannot afford the fares they charge. Uber drivers are very often from ethnic minorities and/or relatively recent immigrants. (All over the developed world taxi drivers tend to be immigrants for very good reasons – unless restrictive practices keep them out.)
Mr Khan knew all that, of course, but he could not afford to refuse the cab drivers’ union.
Now a nice judge has got him off the hook.
I’m not sure that the voters in next years postponed London Mayoral Election will be as generous, but then again that’s just “part and parcel of living in a big city”, isn’t it Mr. Khan?
Okay, I had to look that up out of sheer disbelief.
Your powers-that-be decided to put their elections off because of Covid?
Libs over here tell their kids scary bedtime stories about how the evil Trump might someday do something Hitlerish like this, while the rest of us laugh because it’ll never happen in our system. Just too outrageous.
But y’all just quietly DID IT? We’d have bombings and shootings first.
We’re already having bombings and shootings. But our real drecklicheit this year will come over mail-in voting.
Yeah, but they’re mostly peaceful.
Is it permissible to call them “black cabs” anymore?
@bobbyb: the normal hypocrisy of anti-americans, i’m surprised you’re surprised
bobby b writes, “Your powers-that-be decided to put their elections off because of Covid?”
I would be the first to be outraged if it were any sort of real election that was being postponed. But it’s only the elections for mayor of London. They could postpone them forever and a large proportion of Londoners wouldn’t notice. The post of elected mayor was only created in 2000 (as opposed to the very ancient office of Lord Mayor of London which is now purely ceremonial). Most power lies elsewhere, either with the borough councils or with the actual gubmint. The only really significant effect the mayor has on people’s everyday lives is that he sets bus and tube fares. There have only ever been three London mayors, Ken Livingstone, Boris Johnson and Sadiq Khan. I suspect all three of them saw being mayor mostly as a stepping stone to starting or resuming their career in national politics.
And all three of them are scum.
NB that Uber fares are deflated by using capital to defray the cost of the service. Up to a 70% reduction in some markets.
Eventually Uber will go broke or run through their capital and bring fares in line with market costs. At which point they may have a convenience advantage over traditional cabs but they won’t have much of a cost advantage.
Uber was always a bet on self-driving vehicles and the ability to predict ride sharing via large data. Both of which bets do not look good right now.
-XC
bobby b (September 29, 2020 at 1:16 am), postponing elections would indeed be a gross violation of the US constitution. Even in 1864, when it was obvious that the election would be a de-facto referendum on whether the north would stay in the civil war or give up, there was never any question of postponing it.
By contrast, in the UK, it has always been constitutional to postpone parliamentary elections, let alone others. The law requiring quinquennial elections was put aside when WWII began; as a result, the next whole-parliament election after 1935 was in 1945 (a few by-elections occurred in the ten years between). This was by agreement between the major parties, who formed a coalition government, and with the King’s permission (and possibly the High Court’s too, though I do not know if the court was required to rule on it).
As Natalie notes, parliament could abolish the post of London Mayor, let alone postpone election to it, if it wished.
The sainted Jacinda Arden has also postponed elections this year to universal indifference.
As with so much these days it’s only a problem if orange man either does it or is accused by his opponents of considering it. The worlds best troll clearly enjoys this uneven battle of wits.
Just a clarification for those of use across the pond, past the plains, over the mountains, through the desert, and beside the big trees near the (not very) Placid Sea.
Black Cab Association refers to the those who drive the classic cabs, not the skintone of the drivers, right?
Ah, thanks, all. I read that as if New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio had unilaterally decided to put off his own re-election.
Different jobs, similar titles, I guess.
ZilWerks (September 29, 2020 at 9:30 pm), yes, the cabs are black, not (necessarily) the drivers.
Per the new Rules, don’t we now have to say “yes, the cabs are Black”?
I doubt Sadiq tried to ban Uber mainly on Black Cab Union pressure. Certainly the money will have helped sway his opinion, but Guardian/Islington hate the gig economy (except when it applies to themselves) and that’s his principle base outside the ethnic areas.
they also don’t like what they imagine is the stereotypical black cab driver, and are quite likely to use uber
Mayor Khan is a wonderful man and a sincere British patriot – and London is a very peaceful and well governed place, which is not about to remove statues of British people and rename streets and squares, not even slightly.
Happy now “Central Office”?
Yes bobby b – Niall is correct.
Under the doctrine of Sir William Blackstone (what I call the “Blackstone Heresy”) such people as Chief Justice Sir Edward Coke and Chief Justice (1689-1710) Sir John Holt were totally wrong – there are no basic principles of natural law embodied in Common Law, and Parliament can do anything it likes – anything at all.
As you know Americans dissented from the Blackstone Heresy – hence 1776 and all that. Ulster dissented to – hence the Covenant of 1912 (with a million people giving their oath to, if need be, fight against Parliament – if it betrayed the nation).
Under the doctrine of Sir William Blackstone if Parliament declared, for example, that everyone with brown eyes should be burned alive – then that would be the law and we should set about burning to death everyone with brown eyes. Thomas Hobbes would have been delighted at such a broad view of government power, with law simply being the will of the ruler or rulers – their command, UNLESS he personally had brown eyes – I am not being flippant, as Hobbes argues there is a right to try and save your own life, but no right to try and save the life of someone else against state attack.
So for Parliament delaying elections, or allowing the Executive to delay elections, it is a relatively minor matter (compared with burning to death everyone with brown eyes) – but do not be too happy Sir, as the United States will have an election in November but (as Ellen points out) it is likely to be RIGGED by millions of fake mail-in ballots.
Unless the United States Supreme Court rules against this ELECTION FRAUD (for that is what it is), as it has the power to do under the 14th Amendment (the rights of United States citizens may not be violated by State and local governments – so corrupt State and local governments may not rig elections) then the American Republic is essentially at an end.
The millions of mail-in ballots (without proper I.D. checks) are a blatant attempt to RIG the election – it is that brutally simple. And note how most of the media and most of Big Business support the subversion of the democracy they pretend to care about.
What they really want is a political system such as that of China – and some of them (hello Michael Bloomberg) basically say so – as Big Business has long made its peace with the rulers of China.
I note in passing that WWII’s delaying of parliamentary elections in emergencies does not require the Blackstone Heresy (and I hope did not imply it did when it was done). Both the royal prerogative of delaying an election for some time (but not indefinitely) and the parliamentary power of regulating the frequency of elections when not so delayed are well-precedented. At the time of the American Revolution, Westminster sat for a maximum of 7 years between elections, not 5 years as it does now. One of ‘The Federalist Papers’ essays uses that example to defend the senate’s 6-year-term and the president’s 4-year-term against those who said such long terms would endanger liberty (he argued that liberty was relatively safe in the UK, even though not, under the same parliament, to Americans who could not vote for it). At other periods, Westminster sat for 3 years.
Burke (in e.g. An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs) incidentally refutes the Blackstone Heresy.