Textbook racism: travellers take our buses

I'm not obsessing about the Cambridge Evening News at the moment but it's difficult to allow today's frontpage go by without comment.

TRAVELLER pupils will continue to get free transport to school - while their classmates have to go without.

A bus which takes 18 children as young as four from Rampton to Cottenham Primary School is to be axed in September. A minibus which ferries 40 traveller children from the Smithy Fen site to the school was also to be scrapped. However, the council's Cambridgeshire Race Equality and Diversity Service (CREDS) has now stepped in, forking out £38,000 a year to save the service.

Angry parents are accusing the council of discriminating against the settled community by not saving the Rampton bus.

Louise Adams, who helps out on the bus, said: "The parents are furious, both on the issues of safety and the fact the travellers' site bus is continuing, where ours is not. It's discrimination. The money may be from a different pot, but it's still from the same council."

So let's get this straight - the article is outraged that a school bus is not being axed because it's for travellers. In fact it's pretty clear to see this article is inciting people to be pissed off at the travellers in the area for the fact the council cut their bus service - even though the two things are, in fact, totally unconnected.

How is it the travellers' fault that the Rampton bus hasn't been saved? It isn't. But it wont stop them getting the blame instead of the real culprits. That's a nice trick if you can get away with it. Well, actually, it's not that nice now I think about it.