Labour’s Cuts To Affect London Pensioners And The Disabled
Posted by Simon Emmett on November 5, 2009, 11:00
Here is a poser for Londoners. Cast your memory back to April 2007. It is the London election campaign, and Labour candidiate Ken Livingstone reguarly stated that the Boris Johnson wanted to scrap free travel for pensioners!
Remember that? Well as usual with Labour spin it wasn’t true. In fact Boris did the exact opposite and increased the validity of the freedom pass.
However, as reported in this morning’s Times, “a plan to halve funding for pensioners’ bus passes in London has been condemned by local authorities in the capital.“
The report continues, “The Government could strip London of £30 million in support for free travel for the over-60s and the disabled next year after a review of subsidised travel announced yesterday.”
Yes that’s right the Labour government, who swear blind that it is only the tories that will cut services such as these, are actually the ones that want to take benefits away from pensioners, and those with disabilities.
So why is London being penalised? It wouldn’t have anything to do with them still smarting from losing the mayorality to Boris Johnson per chance?
However, isn’t it also strange that this announcement was made yesterday, when everyone knew that the news wires would be taken up with David Cameron’s new EU policy. It’s almost as if the government is trying its old trick of burying bad news again.
julia said
Not so much buried Simon, more so that they dug a tunnel to the other side of the World and slung it out there, in the hope that we won’t notice, but lets be real, they aren’t the first to do this.
However that doesn’t stop it from being a low and underhand trick.
Oh my Gosh, this is simply dreadful.
So what do we do about it? I know people whose lives will be ruined by this. My own sister is disabled and lives in Catford, she visits us at lest twice a week when she can squeeze us into her busy life since she got her pass and truly couldn’t afford to do this without her free pass.
Then there is my elderly neighbour, who has since getting her pass had her life transformed, my gosh this lovely lady has a most interesting social life, and has found areas of London that she had never been able to get to before and a whole host of new friends, does that elderly lady just go back to a lonely life and my sister will also be confind to her own four walls.
This sort of thing drives me mad, once again the poorest most vulnerable in our communities are to be hit and made to pay the price.