I was watching Carol Vordeman advertising a finance company.

With the final catchphrase, "Life is for living", ringing in my ears, I was handed the council tax bill for 2004/05.

It showed an increase of 8.2 per cent (where is the capping?) on top of last year's all time high of an increase of 16.4 per cent.

If my arithmetic is correct that is a massive 24.6 per cent increase in two years.

If only Chancellor Gordon Brown would adopt the saying "Life is for living". As far as senior citizens are concerned, he makes sure life is for starving.

He is really screwing the older person despite all the fuss that he made with a big smirk over the one-off payment of £100 to households with pensioners of over 70.

That will be gone before you can say Jack Robinson, especially as in 2005 all households are going to be re-valued. All state pensioners should vote him out of office.

-Roy V. Hilliard, Portslade