Rachel Cunliffe

When William Sitwell fired off a rude response to a vegan journalist he probably didn't think it would cost him his job as editor of Waitrose Food magazine. Nor is it likely that he would have anticipated his email kickstarting the latest battle in the ongoing culture war. Yet that is exactly what has happened. At first glance, the story seems clear-cut: it is surely just another clash between the outrage army of censorious, over-sensitive millennials – so-called 'snowflakes' – and the free speech warriors. The former seek out offence; the latter decry Sitwell's departure as another example of ‘political correctness gone mad’. The thought police have struck again, they say, claiming that this shows how expressing the wrong opinions can cost you your job.

Transport for London has decided it knows what will keep me safe better than I do. The transport regulator has today refused to reissue Uber’s private hire licence, on the basis of 'public safety and security implications'. Let me tell you about security implications as a woman in London. If I come out of a club or bar in the middle of the night, I do not want to be hanging around alone on the pavement for half an hour while my minicab fails to materialise, engaged in a frustrating negotiation with the operator about where exactly my driver is. I don’t want to trawl the streets in the hope of finding a black cab to hail down, only to be told my zone 3 address is too out of the way for them.

The offensives against Uber are coming thick and fast. In October, a UK court ruled against the ride-sharing giant in favour of two drivers demanding minimum wages and vacation pay, even though Uber is a platform, not an employer. At the moment, the company is on trial in the EU, where judges are trying to determine what it actually is after European lawmakers (primarily in France) dragged it to court. And on Monday, Uber lost a case in Quebec on whether its drivers were employees or contractors.  Last week, it emerged that the fight is still raging in the US too, where Uber has just settled a lawsuit for $20 million over claims it inflated estimates of how much prospective drivers could earn if they signed up and misled them about the cost of car financing deals.

Oh, Transport for London. How could you? That was my reaction when I read the plans to crackdown on Uber in the capital. And it seems over 80,000 people agree with me, judging by a petition that was launched on Tuesday. For a city which is meant to be the centre of global commerce, with Boris Johnson who supposedly loves markets as its mayor, London really isn’t doing too well. First the night tube service, which was meant to start on the 11th of September, got delayed thanks to pressure from the unions, and now Transport for London (TFL) is protecting taxi drivers from innovation and competition.