I AM amazed it has taken the Prime Minister so long to patronise pensioners (Pledge to protect pensions, The Press, January 6).

He is cosying up to pensioners, of which I am one, because he knows they go out to vote. Can the grey-haired gents and ladies (maybe even the blue-tinted ladies) see through his rhetoric?

He makes no promise to continue winter fuel payments, free prescriptions or bus passes. On top of this, we have the Chancellor of the Exchequer saying he will if re-elected cut a further £25 billion from government spending.

Seeing as about 50 per cent of welfare benefits is spent on pensioners, this indicates that the Chancellor is obviously going to attack the unemployed, the sick and the already impoverished.

It’s all very well for the Lib Dems to bleat on the sidelines and say they opposed these moves, but when it comes to a vote in the House of Commons they will vote this proposed legislation into law, thereby refusing the people they profess to work on behalf of the means to exist. One thing said on the doorstep, another on The Houses of Parliament and in council chambers.

Howard Perry, St James Place, Dringhouses, York.