The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Parasitic Pensioners Rob Loony Councils On Your Tax Money

Last year, the Government introduced the English National Concessionary Travel Scheme, which allows people over sixty and the disabled to travel free by bus all over the country. The Government said that the scheme was "fully funded" and that local councils would not lose out; so naturally, local councils are losing out, because they have to pay for any journey which starts in their area. Preston, which has "allegedly" the second biggest bus station in western Europe (Britain's leading liberal newspaper apparently couldn't be bothered to check), is paying over a million pounds a year to fund trips by people who, while actually in Preston, do nothing more than get on and off buses. Chesterfield has had to lay off forty-five people, and its chief executive claims the council spends more on concessionary travel than on any other public service. "I've had letters from individual senior citizens and pensioners' groups who are really very concerned 45 jobs are being lost because of it," he said. "I tell them, it's a good scheme in terms of social inclusion and the green agenda. It's right you should have it. And they say: 'We could pay half fare, if you're able to save the jobs.' It's quite sad. But it doesn't work like that", because it's a New New Labour scheme; and anything that is right about a New New Labour scheme must inevitably be balanced by an equivalent quantity of wrong, with perhaps a little extra for luck. The Government is now "in consultation" on the matter until some time next year, whereupon the Daveybloke administration will no doubt quietly abolish the whole misguided business and return the non-profitable human resources to the bosoms, budgets and attics of their families, where they truly belong.

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