Whatever figures members of Brighton and Hove City Council produce regarding speeding and parking fines, motorists know we have been taken for a ride over the past five years.

Perhaps councillors can tell us how a 7.7 per cent rise in council tax can be paid out of a 2.7 per cent rise in pensions?

There are only two ways OAPs will be able to pay the increase - either cut down on food (ie starve) or use their hard-earned savings.

Do we live in a democratic country or have we, in Tony Blair, the nearest thing to a dictator this country has ever seen?

-C P Humphrey, Portslade