to be furious they have banned Uber from London?

[Acidophilus]

WTF?

Uber has itsbissues but this is ridiculous.

TFL have bowed to Black cab pressure and we will all pay massively for it. Or get mini cabs that are less safe and treat heir drivers worse.

Still waiting on your answer, Franklin...

I don't think Franklin has an answer.

She doesn't seem very good at reading other people's, either.

Franklin seems easily confused.

Perhaps she is embarrassed by her nonsensical question.

Franklin, do you personally believe they are not employees? What is your basis for that?

Kazzy you are right to raise that. It is EU law which has raised this category of worker - you can be a worker entitled to certain EU law rights but still be self employed for UK tax purposes. Some of the recent cases have been about these worker rights not about tax law.

The law is not clear and was not clear even 30 years ago for many people. There are the classic "badges of trade" (inidications of self employment -taking risk, sometimes rights to substitute someone else to do the work, organising your own hours although not always, paying your own expenses). So presumably all mumsnetters would agree that I am not a zero hours employee and am genuinely self employed as I bear my own expenses including insurance cover and don't get holidy or sick pay and fairly crucially advise a series of different customers.

I gave a little cheer when I heard this news. Nice to see women's safety being taken seriously for a change.

I'm surprised by how many posters on here are defending them when MN in general is so safety aware normally. I can't imagine allowing a DD of mine to get into a car with some random bloke.

I don't live in London so don't have an Uber account, but my daughter used to use them all the time, much cheaper than black cabs, an efficient system and always great when we used them. She accidentally left her bag with contents in the cab one night. It was eventually returned by Uber but soon after that her card was cloned and her email and various accounts and passwords hacked several times over the next few days. Obviously she's sorted all this out now and (apart from the bother) it didn't cause any long term problem - but none of us use Uber any longer.

today's breaking news:

"Uber concealed a hack that affected 57 million customers and drivers, the company has confirmed.

The 2016 breach was hidden by the ride-sharing firm which paid hackers $100,000 (£75,000) to delete the data.

The company's former chief executive Travis Kalanick knew about the breach over a year ago, according to Bloomberg, which first broke the news.

The hackers found 57 million names, email addresses and mobile phone numbers, Uber said.

Within that number, 600,000 drivers had their names and license details exposed. A resource page for those affected has been set up."

www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42075306