On April 1st a new scheme came into force to allow pensioners to have fee off-peak travel around England.
Previously they were entitled to only off-peak travel within their local authority.
Pensioners in Scotland and Wales have been entitled to free public transport at any time throughout their own country for several years and in Northern Ireland they are entitled to free transport throughout Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.
English pensioners still don’t have the same rights that Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish pensioners have because there is no English government for English people.
Free public transport is only one area where English pensioners are disadvantaged compared to the Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish (free central heating, free elderly care, for example) but it’s one that has the potential to make a real difference to their lives, particularly those with mobility problems.
The only way English pensioners are going to get the same treatment as Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish pensioners is with an English Parliament spending English taxes on people in England.
Technorati Tags: England, Public Transport, Pensioners, Discrimination
Now you’ve got onto one, Wonko, which gets me hot under the collar because of my mum and dad. Pensioners should not only get everything free, in my book but they should be not means tested and there should also be bonuses depending on service to the country, e.g. war vet.
The last few years are our responsibility to make happy as far as the things called the state can. Defence and pensions are what the state should be looking at, not social security for idlers in the community.
One of the stupidest things that this useless government has done, and they’ve done many, is to bring about a half hearted devolution within our nation of Great Britain. All it does is to sow discord between the different areas. It should have been all or nothing. If the Scots had wanted the ‘Freedom’ that they’re always shouting about, they could have had it anytime by just voting SNP. As it is we English are subsidising services in Scotland that we don’t get, they think it is their oil and we should not benefit from it, when in actuality it is Shetlands’ oil and they want devolution from Scotland.
Are these people simply incompetent politicians, or is it that they have no idea what they are doing? Can we ever undo the damage they have done? Are the British people so stupid as to put them in again, or have they filled our country with so many fellow travellers that it is too late for us to do anything?