MAX Nottingham (You Say, December 12) is incorrect. It was not Gordon Brown's "generosity" that secured a rise in £5 for single pensioner and £8 for a couple.

New Labour delegates opposed it at last year's Labour Party Annual Conference by a majority of 60-40. It was the much-maligned block vote of the trades unions that swung the vote in favour of the rise against the opposition of Brown, Blair and their Ministers.

The £5 and £8 proposal was in the 1992 Labour manifesto and would be worth £7 and £11 at today's values. It was not "generosity" that secured the increase.

It was the late realisation that while New Labour may think that they need middle England votes to win, they would certainly lose without the votes of Labour's traditional bedrock vote.

That is a pity. One would prefer to think that Brown's "generosity" was the natural response of a Labour Government looking after the poor. Instead, it was done by the arm-twisting of Old Labour after three-and-a-half years of New Labour ignoring the pensioners while looking after their business friends with income tax cuts and piling indirect taxes on the poor.

PETER NIELSEN,

Gilmour Crescent,

Worcester.