SIR: Our Prime Minister has 'solved' social care and NHS waiting times by raising National Insurance contributions. These services principally serve the older section of the community, a group that, year by year, forms an ever larger proportion of the population. Add the State Pension to the mix and an ever increasing 'black hole' appears in the national finances.

Everybody knows how this 'hole' should be filled; it should be filled by somebody else. The Government has decided that working people, rich and poor, and their employers, should pay the increase, while pensioners, rich and poor, should pay nothing. There are many ways to fund these services, all with their pros and cons, and those of us who do not have to make the decision will always feel free to criticise. If does seem unfair, however, that the principal beneficiaries of this extra funding will contribute nothing.

Unlike a very large proportion of humanity, we are governed by people we have elected by universal suffrage. Inevitably therefore, our leaders views on the best means to levy taxes will be clouded by political considerations. In this case, the calculation is quite clear. Approximately 80 per cent of pensioners vote, while nearly 50 per cent of working age people hold our democracy so cheap, that they can't be bothered to turn up at a polling station. Pensioners vote – so they get; young people don't vote - so they don't get.

Roger Stevens,

Cliff Way,

Compton