James Moore: ‘Locust’ Uber gets banned, but don’t write it off yet

Outlook If you add an umlaut to the U in Uber you get a word that’s often used for emphasis in colloquial English. So it’s fair to say that the taxi app of the same name (without an umlaut) has been landed with an über problem.

The outfit that lets you use a mobile to hail a mini cab has been banned from cities before, but never a country. That’s now happened in the umlaut’s home state: Germany. Dieter Schlenker, chairman of Taxi Deutschland, described the company as a “locust”. London cabbies would probably concur.

Needless to say, the last time that adjective was used about a foreign company’s activities in the country it was directed at Sir Christopher Hohn and TCI over its assault on Deutsche Borse, sorry Börse.

Werner Seifert, the man Sir Christopher helped to oust, even called his autobiography Invasion of the Locusts. But perhaps Uber (without the umlaut) should take heart. It was written after Sir Christopher had won.