Wide of the mark

Once again, in today's Bedfordshire on Sunday Patrick Hall MP has got things wrong.

Patrick attempts to justify the budget's increase in alcohol duty on the need to fund extra winter fuel payments for our pensioners. But he could not have been paying attention to Mr Darling's budget. The increase in winter fuel payments are for one year only, whilst tax on alcohol is going to rise progressively each year.

The real reason for the tax rises is that Patrick's Labour government has made a total mess of public finance.