JOHN Blunt, you are losing your touch. Never did I think you would be joining the Mandelson-Darling Thought Police in dealing with widows' pensions.

I agree that some widows have fat company pensions from their husbands' jobs and perhaps do not need the State pension to keep going. These are few and far between.

What about the widows aged over 70, who came through the war. No big, juicy pensions for them. They looked after their parents without carers' allowances.

Now they are expected to pay 75 per cent of the far-too-high council tax on £66 a week pension and to maintain a home with its gas, electric etc. I live in a two-bedroom cottage, council tax £880. Council tax paid, £660. One pension to pay all these charges, the same as if there were two pensions.

All this when we are spending millions on accommodation, welfare payments to all the bogus refugees from all over the place who consider we Brits a soft touch.

Come on, John Blunt, what about that?

MARY FLETCHER, Higham Hall Road, Higham.

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