WHAT confusion a simple misprint causes in the mind of Labour county councillor Rob Peachey.

The Government has indeed given Worcester only a mere £208,000 in grant increase (not £708,000 as misprinted).

With £160,000 ring-fenced for Housing Benefit administration this does leave only £48,000 for all the council services - not £548,000 as in Councillor Peachey's fantasy calculation.

I only wish that the misprint were true. It would mean that the Government had actually given Worcester a fair and proper settlement. Then the council would not have to put the council tax up by 9 per cent.

His Labour city councillor colleague, Marc Bayliss, called this stingy £48,000 "an above-inflation increase!"

Actually, with Chancellor Gordon Brown's National Insurance increase, Government-imposed housing costs, and protecting the pensioners' bus pass, let alone extending it to men over 60, this is actually a 7 per cent cut in real terms. At the council budget meeting, Councillor Bayliss did not deny this.

Everyone else is on board a broad-based campaign to lobby the Government to give Worcester fair funding. Only Labour councillors defend the indefensible.

I think people would respect them more if they stopped defending an injustice just because they are Labour and we have a Labour government.

COUNCILLOR FRANCIS LANKESTER,

All Saints Ward,

Worcester.