SO BEV Hughes is saying that all pensioner households in the constituency wil be £300 a year better off (SUM 11/11/99).

Well I have news for her - I am just one of the very many pensioers who will be worse off.

During the 1997 election, Labour said that pensioners should only have to pay half the TV licence fee, in 1998 they increased the fee by £6 and in 1999 they increased it again by £3.50 and next year we face another rise in the licence fee. Then they brought in a stealth tax on my house insurance.

They have raised child benefit by £4 per week at the same time raising the pensioners by just £2 a week. Now we are told that our pensions will rise next year by the paltry sum of 75p, at the same time announcing that pensioners aged 75 and over will get a free TV licence. This includes all the fat cats in Parliament like Ted Heath, Roy Jenkins, Barbara Castle and James Callaghan.

Bev Hughes seems to think that all pensioners are senile and incapable of thinking for themselvbes. She should be hanging her head in shame at the way this Government has treated pensioners since it was elected.

The only person who is better off in this constituency is Bev Hughes with her two promotions which brought her huge pay increases.

Lillian Bowers, Stretford Road, Urmston.

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