The Uber Wars: Will The Left Ever Fight For Consumers Over Special Interests?

Samuel HooperLeave a comment

London Black Cabs - Uber Taxi Protest

–

Whenever there is a battle between the interests of ordinary consumers and the tired, unimaginative producers who rip them off, the Left take the side of the special interests over the little guy every single time

Wherever there is technological innovation and the prospect of incremental or revolutionary improvements in the way we live, there is also inevitably a finger-wagging lefty standing by with ten good reasons why humanity should stay in the cave, be terrified of fire and reject the wheel because it will put professional floor-draggers out of work.

And so it is with Uber. Left Foot Forward have come up with a list of five things you didn’t know about Uber – the obvious nature of which is clearly based on the assumption that you are a credulous simpleton who has no curiosity or understanding about how the services you use every day come to be delivered. And unsurprisingly, this list of five scandalous “unknown” things just happens to support the case for regulating Uber to death and propping up the greedy, inefficient, snarlingly anti-competitive black taxi cartel.

Here are Left Foot Forward’s five reasons why Uber is actually evil, courtesy of Ruby Stockham:

  1. It asserts that its drivers are ‘partners’, meaning they are not entitled to normal worker’s rights.
  2. If a driver’s rating falls below 4.6 or 4.2 (there are varying accounts) they risk being sacked (or ‘deactivated’ to use the Uber euphemism.)
  3. Uber deducts a fifth of a driver’s income, which is already low.
  4. Uber’s tax arrangements are highly contested.
  5. There are no limits on the number of cars Uber can operate.

My God, it’s awful.

Continue reading →

Will Left Wing Rage Lead To Violence At The Conservative Party Conference?

Samuel Hooper3 Comments

Students Protest - Conservative Party Conference

–

The Corbyn-loving Left may talk about a kinder, gentler politics, but mention the Tories and the thoughts of some quickly turn to violence

The problem with being so utterly convinced of your own moral superiority is that it tends to have a dehumanising effect on how you view those who think differently, making you more likely to say or do things that most people would never ordinarily countenance.

We saw this back in May, when the British political Left – which had insulated itself in social media bubble of their own making for the entirety of the general election campaign – exploded with rage upon discovering that the wider British electorate simply didn’t buy the endless retweets and alarmist infographics which the Milifandom accepted as gospel, and preferred to re-elect David Cameron and the Conservatives.

(I extensively covered the snarling, dark side of the British Left in the aftermath of the election here, in my Left Wing Hate Watch series).

And now, as the Conservative Party prepares to gather in Manchester for their 2015 party conference, an assortment of very angry individuals are also wending their way north to make their Tory-hating views known. Hit-and-miss campaign group The People’s Assembly issued the rallying cry before the dust had settled from the election, in typically hysterical terms:

Continue reading →

Politicians Who Are Against Uber Are Against Working Londoners

Samuel Hooper4 Comments

Uber Taxi Protest

–

Uber represents everything good about capitalism, disruptive innovation at its most useful. Any politician who wants to make it harder or impossible for Uber to operate is directly working against the interests of the people

If a group of heavies from, say, the Unite union had broken into Parliament during the recent debate on the Trade Union Act, disrupted the House of Commons, forced an end to the session and knocked a security guard unconscious in the process, what do you think David Cameron’s Conservative government would be doing right now?

Exactly. Those involved would be receiving the same full measure of British justice as was dealt out to the London rioters back in 2011 and looking at some hard jail time, while the unions they represented would be positively begging for measures as mild as those currently proposed by the government. The Conservatives would be at total war with the unions, and Labour’s hyperbolic claims about the Evil Tories wanting to roll back two hundred years of industrial relations regulation might actually start to seem plausible.

All of which makes it surprising that when exactly the same thing happened at London’s City Hall earlier this month – when members of that famous cartel, London’s black cab drivers, burst into the chamber and brought an abrupt end to Mayor’s Question Time – there were absolutely no negative consequences whatsoever.

CityAM reported at the time:

Mayor’s Question Time was shut down after police were called to City Hall today, after a security guard was apparently knocked out in scuffle outside the building. 

Black cab drivers were demonstrating outside (and inside) the Southbank venue over ongoing criticism of Transport for London’s handling of regulation for private hire car companies, in particular Uber. 

They waved banners calling for Johnson to “stand firm” against “Uber’s lobbyists”, with suggestions that the ride-sharing taxi app puts public safety at risk. 

Ah yes, appeals for politicians to consider public safety – the last refuge of the desperate, antiquated monopolist fighting a lost cause as they slide into irrelevance. Won’t somebody please think of the children, too, while we’re at it?

Continue reading →

Cereal Killer Cafe vs The Selfish Anti-Gentrification Mob

Samuel Hooper1 Comment

Anti Gentrification Mob

–

Hipsters can be irritating, yes, but launching a pogrom against them is more than a little bit fascistic

One of the unintended new side-effects of gentrification in London seems to be roving bands of self-entitled class warriors, presuming to speak for the whole city when really they represent only themselves, carrying out Kristallnacht style pogroms against businesses that are insufficiently tatty, cheap or “authentically” working class.

The latest victim is the Cereal Killer Cafe in Brick Lane, a quirky and charming (if thoroughly Hipster-like) establishment selling international breakfast cereals in weird combinations, which I happened to visit for the first time only last weekend.

From the Guardian:

Hundreds of protesters attacked a cereal cafe in east London on Saturday night, daubing the word “scum” on the shop window and setting fire to an effigy of a police officer.

Riot police were called in to defend the Cereal Killer Cafe in Shoreditch after it was targeted by a large crowd of anti-gentrification activists carrying pigs’ heads and torches.

The owners of the cafe, which has been seen by some as a symbol of inequality in east London, said on Sunday that the attack left customers including children “terrified for their lives”.

Now I’ll be the first to admit that hipsters and their fashions can be annoying, pretentious, infuriating even. But marauding up and down the streets at night wearing masks, carrying flaming torches and breaking windows in response? That goes too far. And yet it is precisely the sort of behaviour we encourage when we indulge in intellectually lazy talk about the supposed “evils” of gentrification – or “social cleansing” as some are now calling it, in an attempt to fill us with the same horror we might feel about ethnic cleansing.

Continue reading →

UKIP Conference 2015 – The Dangers Of EU Referendum Tunnel Vision

Samuel Hooper2 Comments

Nigel Farage - UKIP Conference 2015 - Doncaster

–

Full speed ahead to the referendum, but on all other fronts UKIP is treading water

Given the unedifying way in which Day One of UKIP’s 2015 party conference ended, the leadership is probably relieved to have been bumped down to third place in last night’s television news running order by the assorted villains and criminals at Volkswagen and FIFA.

After a day in which the coming EU referendum was placed front and centre, UKIP somehow managed to finish the day with much of the media talking about a potential split in the party over which “Out” campaign group to support. Rather than talk about how best to fight and win the referendum, the party was seen to be bickering over which group it most wanted to fight the EU referendum with. The inter-group rivalry is not all UKIP’s fault, it must be acknowledged, but it does not bode well for the eurosceptic cause if we are already witnessing bickering and glory-seeking on this scale.

Just when UKIP’s laser focus on winning the coming EU referendum should be paying real early dividends, the party is mired in a contentious debate over which eurosceptic campaign group’s bid to be given lead campaigner designation by the Electoral Commission should be supported. That – and the almighty row which blew up between Douglas Carswell and donor Arron Banks – does leave the party vulnerable to criticism and mockery like this:

Continue reading →