‘It’s hard to survive’: why UK private hire drivers are striking on Valentine’s Day

About 200 drivers got in touch with the Guardian to share their views on the industrial actionWhen Simon Waite began working as a private hire driver in 2017, it gave him the flexibility and income to spend time with his children, then aged five, 12 and 18. “One of the reasons I loved Uber was because I could now go to the school plays, my son’s football, I could earn my money around life,” he says.But over the past few years, Waite, a 41-year-old in Hertfordshire, says he has