Since you raise the matter, exactly how long has this free travel to which you allude been given to the class of humanity to which you refer and what was the date of inception, since you feel that you need to inform the forum membership of this matter of time.
I am, at the age of 69, acutely aware that my memory recall is not what it was when I was aged 29, but it is still longer than the so-called memory span of a goldfish. Do not forget that I was afflicted by a full stroke in July 2010 and a mini-stroke some eight months ago which could have, but fortunately did not, have severe implications for my cognitive thinking ability. I still have enough mental facility to be aware of the various items such as make up the cost of living, income tax, community charge ("H" banded property), water rates, gas and electricity charges....do I need to continue. Old indeed we may be, but many of us are still enjoying the full use of our mental faculties.
Paul - I'm a bit confused about what you are asking here (other than it was 2008 when the free England-wide bus travel came in, under ENCTS - prior to that there were different schemes in different councils).
Whilst I'm glad to hear that you live in an expensive house and enjoy the use of your mental faculties, I'm struggling to understand what (if anything) you want answered here (?)
The vast majority of this thread is driven by the envy
This thread is driven by the fact that South Yorkshire tax payers cannot afford to pay for South Yorkshire pensioners to have free train travel (in the boundaries plus also to Leeds /Huddersfield etc).
Normally the "you're just envious" argument is one reserved for threads about railstaff pay/ conditions!
I'm still paying, via double taxation of my pension
... and I'm still paying, like many, many others. Having already paid tax on my income from where my pension savings originated, I now pay tax on my pension as well since its classed as "unearned income"
Double taxation - fair or what?
How is your pension double taxed? Pension contributions are made tax free (i.e. before income tax is applied to that part of your salary), you can take up to a quarter of your pension fund out tax free.
The remaining pension is subject to income tax (as is all income).
The difference is that when your pension was invested, your pension scheme got tax relief on the dividends (something that today's workers don't get as it was abolished in the late 1990s).
Free travel (bus, in my case) is just small recompense for the vast amount we have paid in
Apart from the pensions and the winter fuel allowance and the enhanced savings rates and the free bus travel... what have the Romans ever done for pensioners?
Save your venom for those who have paid nothing in and are taking vast amounts out. You know who I am referring to
I don't know who you are referring to. Please enlighten.
why are people who haven't paid into the system at all are, when they arrive in then UK, suddenly allowed benefits which I, and many like me have paid for?
Ah, *that*'s the road you were going down...
...which generous benefits are you talking about then?
I don't disagree with that, but its not just about free travel, is it?
Yes. That's what the protests were about - pensioners in South Yorkshire who think that free train travel is a "right", who sing civil rights songs and who think that they are above the law.
Please stop trying to turn this into an argument about something that it isn't.
We have paid into a system (in my case for 47 years and still paying) that allegedly would financially help us after retirement
There's still financial help after retirement - it's called a state pension. Nobody promised you forty seven years ago that you could have free train travel, did they?
Of course, there are free prescriptions available for those who need them - why don't they take those away too?
Again, nobody is suggesting this. But if you try to debate about pensioner entitlements you always get someone getting hysterical and before you know it the debate about free train travel will become "oh, so now you want to stop my pension".
Wibble.
You got conned. Today's benefits are paid for by today's taxes, what you "paid into the system" has already been spent.
Facts are facts - as the population ages the burden gets wider while the tax base is simultaneously getting smaller, and eventually something has to give. Today's young workers are already doing their share of the heavy lifting by facing a lifetime of renting where previous generations were able to buy their own homes, at some point they will need to be joined in doing it tough by the growing aged population
Agreed.
The Welfare State is a glorified Ponzi Scheme - the current generation of workers pay for the current generation of pensioners - that's how it always has been (since the first generation of pensioners hadn't paid for their own retirement).
Difference is that this current generation of pensioners didn't pay for their parents' generation to have free train travel, which is why its unfair for them to expect free train travel to be paid for them.
People of older generations got free education and may have only worked between, say, 21-60 and yet expect to live until about 90 with a substantial pension, paid for by mostly future generations. That's not sustainable. If you look at how much you've put in, I suspect it doesn't actually pay for a substantial pension of around 30 years at all!
You admit that it's unsustainable, but are you one of the ones who wants future generations to pay to sustain benefits for your generation?
In general, the older generation do have more money than younger generation, yet portray the opposite to be true.
Northern have already given loads of free "discretionary" days to this group, which they never would have done if the passengers were young people. They only put up with it for a long time because it was older people and they do get treated with more respect by the rail industry in general than younger people (as has been evidenced numerous times).
Agreed. The only surprise is that Northern have started playing "bad cop" (after turning a blind eye to this bunch of "freedom riders" for the past three months).
We've seen people in the "Disputes" subforum being prosecuted for a lot less than the price of a ticket from Barnsley to Sheffield.
