IN response to Mrs Terry Tracey's letter regarding the reinstatement of the "free" bus pass (Advertiser, January 12), she and her colleagues should not be thanking the councillors.

Give thanks to the Redditch council tax-paying general public below retirement age who cough up for them. There is no such thing as a "free" bus pass.

In the local election campaign, Labour Councillor David Cartwright said enough money was available to cover the concessionary bus pass scheme in the budget.

Having been re-elected to run the council, he now announces redundancies along with cuts in council services to save £1 million, or risk being capped.

And Labour claimed it was the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats who were the service-cutting parties.

This Government should have a scheme for pensioner travel across the country, not just Redditch, or increase the state pension to cover travel. (Remember Gordon Brown's recent award to pensioners which could only be expressed in pennies).

By comparison, Mr Brown and our MP Jacqui Smith have just voted to accept an enhanced gilt-edge final salary scheme, when many of us have been robbed of our pensions - and public sector workers are about to be!

I too suggest we remember the hypocrites and all vote accordingly at the next election.

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