SO, politicians want us to work longer to qualify for our state pension. Well, how many of them have tried digging trenches in about six inches of mud when it is lashing down with rain, tried laying paving kerbstones, or handling steel on a frosty day when you can’t feel your fingers and toes?

How many of them have worked in artificial light doing nightshift (Russian millionaires’ yachts do not count) in a factory or worked on a building site when the wind is gale force and filling your lungs with dust?

Yea. I didn’t think so. If we’re in such a mess and can’t afford state pensions, then why hasn’t any politician got the guts to say we must stop all immigrants coming into the country and qualifying for benefits and more without having paid anything towards them?

Also, instead of making those at the bottom work an extra year, why not make those at the top who spend most of the day on the golf course, or in hotel restaurants, scheming about how they can bump up their pension to figures most people can only dream of, work an extra five or even ten more years?

Lawrence A McGowan, Sherburn Village, Durham.