NO doubt followers of New Labour will approve of the latest piece of stealth taxation.

Were not retired people insulted by the recent miserly rise in the state pension, based on inflation at the rate of just over one per cent, which gave them an extra 75p.

What good is that to anyone? It just demonstrates Labour's contemptuous attitude to people who spent 40 to 50 years of their lives building up the wealth of this country.

Then, the Scrooge Chancellor uses a different inflation rate of three per cent plus, to clobber the motorist by increasing the price of petrol in the same budget.

Many pensioners are motorists, so it is a double whammy for them.

If the Chancellor had the guts to also use the three per cent rate for increased tax on petrol to adjust pensions, then retired people could have had a rise of around £2.50 a week.

That would have been more conducive to the well being of the country than banging the revenue into Labour's war chest to dangle goodies before the voters at the next election.

WALT MEADOWS, Whalley New Road, Blackburn.