Hands Off My Bus Pass!

Alan Roden, the Daily Mail's Scottish Political Editor complains that over sixties are using their free bus passes to travel in and out of work. This year I turn sixty and I will use my pass to travel to work. However before people throw up their hands in horror perhaps a little comparison may be in order. 

I claim no benefits and earn a little over £14,000pa, I pay all my own expenses and also provide a home for my daughter and her children. An MSP earns over £57,000, an MP earns over £65,000 on top of this they get expenses including travel. Now to add insult to injury they are calling for a thirty-two percent pay rise, mine was below inflation. I might be more inclined to believe we were all bearing our share of austerity if MP's pay rises were pegged to one percent and they payed their own expenses, but no, they live in comfort off my sweat and that of many like me. In the meantime my savings have all been used to meet expenses. It is small wonder that the idea of the extermination of the political and banking classes is looking increasingly attractive.

It might also be taken in account that as long as we can travel there is a possibility of our visiting shops and spending the money the free pass affords us, to remove the pass contributes further to recession.

I suspect the salary of a Political Editor is substantial, but at least they have a proper job;  the majority of our parliamentarians are free loaders and it's about time we kicked them out and replaced Parliament with a system of political governance answerable to ordinary people and representative of ordinary people. We look at MPs, bankers and tax dodgers and wonder who will be the first of us to take up arms against the sea of corruption that has become endemic at the top of society and end it.