On Sunday I did the first leg of a walk along the North Downs Way/Pilgrims Way. It goes past Canterbury Cathedral and ends up at Dover. It starts in Farnham. There are 8 of us who do this walk – four couples – and we have just completed walking from the source of the Thames to the Barrier. Incidentally, the Thames path is a visionary example of local councils working together to give the public access to the river bank. And great fun, particularly if you like walking on the flat. The source was the most exciting.
One of our number has just passed his 60th birthday (but did the 12 miles comfortably). He is thrilled with his new freedom pass, but over dinner the night before the walk we all decided he shouldn’t have it. Nothing has changed about his life as a result of being 60. He is still working, he lives in the same house, he can still afford to pay to travel, just as he could when he was 59. Clearly, when he stops working, it may be different, and he has never been paid well, so I don’t begrudge him the pass. Indeed it is good for him to be able to save a bit of money, especially since he has a new grandson. But there is a lot less money to go round these days and we do need to be careful about where the public sector spends it.
Mind you when the rest of us in the group reach 60, we may think differently . . .
Yes.
Only when profligate governments stop wasting billions on infantile and ridiculous pageantry, war machines, nuclear bases and all the it attendant parts, and of course deny themselves a pay rise that is extraordinary in the circumstances, should anyone of our ordinary member accept removal of anything form their purse.
This country no longer has the best interests of its people at heart, so why should they sacrifice anything for it? After all we are now global are we not? Why not therefore, go to the global corporations to ask them to give up their perks rather than centre on robbing those who paid their way religiously.
I find it difficult to accept non-means tested benefits that go to people who are quite able to afford to pay, although I do understand the argument that many of the people – particularly when we are talking about the elderly – who would be entitled to benefits wouldn’t apply for them if they were means tested.
However, what I find totally ridiculous is that people who are still working are able to receive benefits such as a free bus pass based purely on their age. No such benefits should be payable before state retirement age, and people who are still working regularly should not receive them (with some thought required as to the definition of “regularly”).
Not only can many people in their 60s afford to pay for bus travel, I know people who never travelled by bus until they has their passes, but now do so regularly!
Jonathan, the problem is that, to quote the gvt, “Retirement age is when an employee chooses to retire.”* Thus, if such a pass is to continue – a separate argument – then one or more arbitrary tests will need to be applied.
* https://www.gov.uk/retirement-age
ladytizzy, by “state retirement age” I meant the age at which people receive the state pension. This is to rise to 67 or 68, so I don’t see why the free bus pass needs to be available at 60.
Recreational walking is about as near as most of us can achieve to a ‘sustainworthy- body exercising-habit’;
and I recall some research that concluded
(‘) humankind’s natural evolutionary need is to walk thirty (30) miles a day’)
which triggers one’s brain to distinguish between “natural- evolution” and “civilizational development”;
and I think that it is the latter that has gone seriously astray;
or been ‘accidentally’ set-up
(for instance, not so much by an imperfect or partly-fallible God but by “post-graduate student-ETs” who from time to time have been visiting Earth and been ‘influencing’ both our natural-evolution and our civilizational-development.
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Many retired men and women in Australia hire accountants and lawyers to show a nett position ‘qualifying’ them for the minimum Social Welfare, thereby including them on the “free” bus-pass list and budget.
This bus-card is not “free”;
we are paying for it many times every day through our taxes, even if only through VAT
(which significantly should have been correctly labelled “Profit Adding Tax”
because it has yet to show “added-value” for the subject-consumer).
Plymouth City is one that still prints on the concessionary bus ticket “Free Travel”.
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The unconscious ‘driver’ for this generally mindless and ruthlessly selfish “competitivity” by ‘governance’ as well as by the well-heeled elderly, appears to be
“self-worth”, “recognition for a lifetime of arduous services rendered” and “in lieu of a Medal”.