Freedom Pass: Rosen exposes absurd rules blocking renewals

On 12 November, popular 79-year-old author Michael Rosen posted on Twitter that the Freedom Pass didn’t work. For anyone outside of the London bubble, a Freedom Pass provides free or discounted public travel for London residents who have a disability or are aged over 60. Unfortunately, when Rosen went to renew his pass, they wouldn’t let him… because he didn’t have an active Freedom Pass.

The situation is familiar in its Kafkaesque nature, frustrating and quite dull. ‘Why are you writing this?’, I hear you think loudly at your phone screen. ‘Why am I reading this?’ you think, as you carry on reading it, such is the power of compulsive scrolling and/or the friendly and approachable writing style of the Canary.

Freedom Pass — Don’t you hate it when old people get free shit?

Well I would have agreed with you, had Kirstie Allsopp – everyone’s favourite Channel 4 overpriced property show presenter – not chosen to tweet:

A writer so successful that today is a day dedicated to him in schools all over the country thinks it is reasonable that he travels for free due to his age. People have to stop taking things they do not need, it is wrong and it is bankrupting our country. https://t.co/emkggnFVpr

— Kirstie Allsopp (@KirstieMAllsopp) November 14, 2025

So now, because my editors are in a good mood (or distracted writing something infuriating about Your Party internal politicking or summat), I get to have a rant about this absolute fucking shower [we are the Canary editors and we approve this message]. I don’t even want to have a go at Allsopp in particular. Partially, that’s because I’ve seen some of her Kirstie’s Homemade Home-type programming. It’s reassured me that we live in two entirely separate worlds. Likewise, Twitter has already laid into her for it:

I have an over 60s Oyster card and an over 60s train pass / I think I deserve these considering the massive amounts of tax I have paid during the making hay years – I live on one of London’s finest bus routes and use it as much as possible- because I’m worth it!

— Jenny Eclair (@jennyeclair) November 14, 2025

The embodiment of miserly British decline in a tweet. We must expenditure all energy and resource into taking things away from people. https://t.co/cPa3UKmlgn

— Kaos Kith Keith Ktarmer KC, KC (@chaoswithkeith) November 14, 2025

Actually, I want more people to get free shit

Rather, it’s the whole miserable fucking crab-bucket mentality embodied by Allsopp’s tweet that I want to highlight. Never mind that the problem Rosen was highlighting would be the same for someone without the author’s fame.

So, to get the important bit out of the way. I want public transport to be free for everyone. Failing that, I want it to be cheap for everyone. If that’s out the question, I want it to be free or cheap for people who don’t have as much chance of getting around under their own steam. That goes double for people in London, a city which It was created to punish even the idea of being a pedestrian. Not to mention that we have the most expensive public transportation in the world.

When I say I want this shit to be free, I mean it. Along with that, central to it even, I don’t want people to have to jump through hoops to get it. If someone turns up and says ‘I need a new Freedom Pass please’, I want them to be handed a Freedom Pass.

Freedom Pass — Yes, even if they’re fucking jerks

Note, also, that that isn’t an “I don’t mind if some rich people get free shit so long as poor people also get it”. It’s not a begrudging acceptance that some rich people will get free shit. I want even a sucking moral black hole in the shape of a man like Nigel Farage to get his free bus pass. He can use it to ride around London, where he lives, while he doesn’t visit Clacton, where he’s meant to be an MP.

Partially, this is a practical consideration. Means-testing benefits costs more. If we’re paying some team of witch-finders to root out the undeserving poor, there’s less money to go around. The logical endpoint of the desperate British obsession with benefits cheats is the DWP calling up amputees to see if their limbs grew back yet.

I’ve seen too many friends who desperately needed help fucked over by their inability to prove it in the eyes of the government. I think that the impulse to humiliate people who need help is, in fact, sickening. I’m tired of pretending that it’s not.

I want to live in a place that cares for people

But also, even beyond the question of means-testing, I don’t want people to voluntarily forgo their use of free shit even if they’re rich. Mind you, I won’t object, but also (and more importantly): I just don’t care. It’s not that I think they deserve it, or don’t deserve it for that matter. I don’t think that ‘deserve’ factors into the equation.

I want to live in a society that takes care of people. Part of that care is wanting people to receive help when they ask for it. If that means that rich people receive help too: good. They’ll already have paid for their free shit, because I also want them to pay fair taxes.

If you agree with the above, roughly, even if you think it’s overly utopian or whatever, that’s good. I hope that we can work together to build a world that cares for people. If you don’t agree with it, I can’t really do anything to stop you. We just see the world in fundamentally different ways. And I still want you to get a free bus pass.

Featured image via the Canary