ISN'T it amazing how manufacturers can increase prices by sleight of hand?

From time to time I need certain medications for catarrh, and recently visited a chemist for a brand of tablets.

The tablets in question no longer come in packets of 30, at £4.29, but in packets of 24 at £4.09.

A bargain eh? Not likely, each tablet now costs 17.04p; the previous price, in 30s, was 14.3p each. A tidy increase of nearly 20 per cent.

This puts Gordon Brown in the third division of stealth tax inventors.

Needless to say, I'm looking for cheaper brands.

Harry Hayes,

Chatsworth Drive,

Haxby, York.

Updated: 10:16 Monday, August 13, 2001