TONY Blair has been accused of betraying Britain's pensioners, not once but twice, by one of his party's most senior and respected figures.

Baroness Castle of Blackburn said his glossy new Road To Manifesto document ditched two key pledges to Britain's Old Age Pensioners.

The former Cabinet Minister and MP for Blackburn demanded that any future Labour government restore the link between pensions and average earnings and the resurrection of the full State Earnings Related Pensions Scheme.

At a Westminster Press Conference, she said New Labour had sold out to the private pensions industry.

Baroness Castle said a Labour government could not afford to restore to pensioners the cash stolen from them by Margaret Thatcher when she broke the earnings link.

But it could restore SERPS as a pace-setter in the pensions industry, which she believed would overtake private provisions.

That pledge had been included and costed in the 1992 election manifesto she said, adding: "What is worrying is their omission from the latest draft manifesto.

"This fails to endorse Labour's most cherished principles, including the belief in state insurance and the hatred of means testing.

"The party seems to have fallen victim to the propaganda of the private pensions providers who are trying to convince the British people that we can no longer afford to ensure dignity in retirement for everyone."

She said that means testing state retirement benefits and trying to use private schemes as second pensions instead of SERPS, as proposed by Mr Blair, would not work for millions of low-paid people.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.