RECENT pages of letters in your newspaper have brought pleasure to an old buffer like myself, especially those of John Muir, W Jones and my old friend and erstwhile colleague Bernard Baker.

In the 'alternative newspaper' our beloved MP in his 'wide of the mark' column praises the recent budget as being for 'the hard-working', which is the cause of this correspondence or relative thereto. I agree with those of Jones and Muir and restrict this missive to the points of Bernard's letter, fully appreciating his predicament, being a disabled pensioner myself. This budget was devised by the same gang which railed against 'Gormless Gordon' when he raised the pension funds back in 1998, but now here they are carrying out the same programme.

In spite of all the hype and the repetition of 'the mess left by the last government', the budget followed the same old trusted and true remedies used certainly in my lifetime. It was leaked piecemeal to the media weeks in advance and as predicted, favoured the well-off and core-Tory voters, using the familiar 'petrol, booze and fags' basis to raise revenue, before turning to the most vulnerable members of society – pensioners, disabled, inform, long-term sick and others in similar straits – and taking away or reducing their benefits, benefits which gave them a better standard of living and quality of life. Too easy!

Over the next four years, Osborne's 'granny tax' will deprive pensioners of £3.5 billion but he still has to borrow £3.8 billion per week to cover the increase in our national debt. Nothing has been done to reduce public spending which doubled over 10 years under Labour. The extra borrowing will bring no advantage or prosperity to the UK, but will go towards:

1) Paying the increased contributions into the bottomless bucket of the EU, and to bailing out its bankrupt economies.

2) Increasing our overseas aid funds, which are both unwarranted and unwanted. However it will enable our ridiculous Prime Minister to preen and posture round the world and convince himself that he is an international statesman. (At least India was honest enough to refuse our aid. In other countries, it is mis-appropriated, hence the continuous appeals from Oxfam, UNICEF, Sponsor a Child and other worldwide charities).

3) The Queen's Diamond Jubilee, the proposed lavish extravagance for which we cannot afford. Mr Jones has already propounded my feelings.

4) The Olympic Games, where the emphasis is not so much to do with athletes' prowess, but with trying to outdo the previous hosts, who were wealthy, at the opening and closing ceremonies. The games themselves are not so much as to which country has the best athletes, but which country produces the best drugs! By all means let's have true sporting contests but curtail the vulgar extravagance.

5) To finance the HSR2, which is not required except by Brussels whose morons have given Cameron his instructions. Not only will this be driven across some of our most beautiful countryside, which is the country's main tourist attraction, but ignores the drastic repairs necessary for our roads and infrastructure.

A?clever economist in one of the national papers stated that Osborne, in spite of assuring us pensioners that he had been most generous in raising our basic pension by £5.30 per week and having taken away our confusion over tax thresholds, has nevertheless, by refusing to increase age allowance by the expected £1,100, is taking £4.23 per week from any pensioner paying tax at the basic rate. The increase in state pension is taxable an the 'generous' increase is thereby reduced to £4.24 after tax deduction. Thus we pensioners' increase is 1p per week. This is what our MP?in his boyish enthusiasm means for us to be thankful for.

Is it not time our Lib-Dem government appreciated that we pensioners have worked hard all our lives and deserve better?

– Cy Roberts, Coalway.