Uber London

In fairness, I had one issue with the years I've used Uber and they were pretty awful sorting it. After being on the lash for an aftershow party, their driver "couldn't find us", despite being in one of the major West End venues. We tracked him on the map and we made no effort to collect us.

At the time, they were useless - I got a strike for not turning up. I called the (0870) number and they issued a full credit for the trip I paid for and a free trip to the same value so it was sorted happily in the end, but really poor on the night.

They are a vile company. Good riddance.

Similarly cabs are supposedly legally obliged to not turn down lone women at night; but I've had any number of black cabs refusing to take me sarf of the river after midnight and leaving me stuck.

And I wasn't drunk and lairy, honest.

I know you have to be wary with Uber but it's affordable and accessible. For me it's not Uber v black cab, its Uber v no cab.

My friend is an Uber driver. He does it because he can choose his hours and fit it around other insecure work to get extra money. Not great but Uber is a symptom of the problem not the problem itself.

How are they a symptom of the problem when their employment policies are the problem?

I don't have an Uber account but I've used them with friends. Ive always found them pretty useless and borderline rude - regardless of where in the country I was. Whereas the vast majority of my black cab experiences have been fab.

I use black cabs frequently, usually via apps MyTaxi or Gett which often run discounts (for example, MyTaxi were offering cheap fares to Heathrow from Zone 1 for £25 over the summer - way cheaper than Uber and with a lot more luggage space). They offer the same convenience of app booking, the same security of tracked bookings and drivers and charging direct to credit cards or PayPal.

I don't like Uber - I live in a small street in Zone 1, and Uber never seem able to find me despite being in the A-Z and on all satnav systems. The last Uber I did get from an office in West London refused to take me because I couldn't give them the postcode of St Pancras station and they couldn't find it in their satnav. They dumped me on the A4 because I was told that a postcode was mandatory for them to get anywhere in London. I'm probably lucky in that I live north of the river, fairly central, but I've never had a black cab refuse to take my fare.

That said, I believe that competition is good, and clearly a lot of people like Uber, but I think what's happened here is that Uber has played fast and loose with regulation and when TfL have challenged them, Uber have played hardball because they didn't expect this outcome. I find it worrying that the head of Uber in London was on BBC News earlier today encouraging people to "get angry" with the Mayor of London in order to get the decision reversed. Firstly, this is TfL's decision, not Sadiq's and while he may agree with the decision, he can't personally turn it around. Secondly, we've had far too much of people "getting angry" in public debate and it doesn't help anyone. If you look at the personal abuse on Sadiq's Twitter account today - often directed at his race or religion - I do think it's indicative of the way Uber run their business.

Ultimately I expect that Uber will agree to come more into line with TfL regulation and they'll get their licence back. Their relationship with TfL has been high-handed and arrogant and if they agree to follow the rules then there's no reason why they shouldn't retain their licence.

Worth noting that another Uber competitor, Taxify, was shut down just a few weeks ago. This isn't a campaign against Uber - it's asking new entrants to meet the same requirements of other market participants.