A party that picks the pockets of its supporters is doomed to fail in an election

SIR – I received an email from HMRC on Friday, informing me that my tax code for the coming year has changed, and that I will be required to pay an extra £850 of tax. It also said that my state pension has increased by £788 per annum, resulting in a net loss.

Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor, triumphantly announced that the triple lock would be paid in full for 2025. He neglected to mention that, due to frozen personal allowances, the money was being given with one hand and taken back with the other.

During my 39 years of military service I always voted for the Tories because they could largely be relied upon to maintain economic resilience and defence spending. Sadly, that is no longer the case, so I see no reason to vote for them.

Malcolm Halliwell Tingewick, Buckinghamshire

SIR – Neil Record takes a swipe at “gold-plated” public-sector pensions (Business, March 28).

In the early 1980s I was a middleranking civil servant responsible for administering a £7million annual grant scheme, which frequently involved complex negotiations with senior businessmen. My salary was a whisker over £12,000, with no provision of overtime payment for long days spent away from home.

I eventually discovered that my opposite numbers in industry were earning three or four times my salary, and enjoyed the perks of annual bonuses, company cars, medical insurance and private dining rooms.

Civil servants accepted that a modest salary was offset by full job security and – by the standards of the day – a generous pension that paid 50 per cent of final salary after 40 years’ service. In other words, the pension was partly deferred pay. Blame for the Treasury’s failure to make provision for this commitment should not be laid at the feet of pensioners.

Robert Humm Stamford, Lincolnshire

SIR – The minimum private-sector employers’ pension contribution is 3 per cent of salary, yet contributions to the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) can be up to 10 times more – and often exceed that.

Many local councils are struggling financially, if not actually broke. How can the country afford the LGPS?

Then there’s the not-so-small matter of unfunded public-sector schemes with current liabilities of nearly £3trillion – a debt of more than £40,000 for every person in the country. How sustainable is that?

Bill Parish Bromley, Kent