Under immense pressure from the opposition parties and some backbenchers the Labour Government has finally made a U-turn in agreeing to compensate 60,000 pensioners who have lost their pensions because their pension scheme failed.

Labour has agreed to invest £400 million of what they call 'public money' into the compensation scheme. However, when you look behind the headline a different picture emerges (isn't that always the case with this Government?).

When Labour came to power in 1997 Gordon Brown immediately raided our pension schemes with one of the 66 new taxes Labour has introduced.

He has raided our pension schemes to the tune of £5 billion per year - one of the reasons why so many company schemes have folded or had to reduce benefits.

The £400 million compensation package represents approximately one per cent of the £35 billion plus which he has raided from our schemes to date.

Furthermore, this compensation package isn't going to be paid immediately - it will be spread out over the next 20 years which means that for the next 20 years he will continue to take £5 billion per year out of our schemes and put back in £20 million per year!

When will the British electorate wake up to the fact that Labour are not and never have been the working man's party. They simply say all of the right things to the media and then do something quite the opposite.

Tony Taylor,

Grassholme,

Woodthorpe, York.

Updated: 10:49 Friday, May 21, 2004