SIR -- I am grateful for the invitation even through a third party, from Mike Foster MP, to write to him personally. This is being in sharp contradiction to a previous exchange of letters in 2001 when he suggested in reply to a letter written to him in an appeal for help that I should use my previously public support of the Independents to lobby for support. However, my letter of June 5 raised questions that deserved answers for the thousands of Worcester pensioners who Mike Foster represents. Their lives are being affected by the changes brought about by the present government - but perhaps as these growing numbers of pensioners who like me, are not New Labour supporters, they don't qualify for an answer?

BRIAN HUNT,

Worcester.