UNDER fire from the grassroots for being out of touch with ordinary people and with the Tory leadership's populist policies going down well, Labour responds today with a bid to win back the disaffected 'grey vote' with a plan to put up the basic pension next time by £2 a week.

And well it might aim to pour oil on the storm of discontent stirred up among elderly voters, angered by this month's pension rise of just 75p and by recent reports that Labour strategists regard them as Tory, racist and workshy.

But if the annoyance that the government has stirred up among a decisive sector of the electorate has been brought home by the back-bench revolt earlier this month over the inflation-pegged tiny pension increase and by the bulging postbags of MPs, the question is whether a £2 rise next time will be enough to buy back the grey votes that Labour is currently deemed to have jeopardised.

We think not.

For the crucial test of the state pension's value as far as those drawing it are concerned is not how much it buys them, but how well off it makes them in comparison to everybody else.

And on that score, they are trailing way behind the rest of society and a £2 rise will make little difference to the situation -- or their discontent. That is because ever since 1980 when the Conservative government snapped the link between pensions and pay levels and tied increases to the rate of inflation instead, pensioners are estimated to have lost out to the tune of £30 a week.

And even increased winter heating allowances, going up now to £150, free TV licences for the over-75s and the prospect of £2 pension rise next year do little to claw back that difference or the feeling among millions of pensioners that they are doubly deprived.

The test for the government is whether it dare or can afford to restore the pension's link with earnings.

Certainly, the Chancellor has some scope.

The £2 increase comes, after all, from the fruit of surpluses from government departments and higher-than-estimated tax revenues.

In addition, the £22.5 billion the Treasury is drawing from the auction of mobile telephone licences could give much greater leeway for higher pension increases if the government decided not to target this windfall towards repaying the national debt.

The government should not be complacent, it still has a long way to go to curb the dissatisfaction among the elderly over their pensions and the way they are regarded.

And as time goes by, and the proportion of older people in the population grows, the grey vote gets more and more significant.