SIR – I find the musings of Social Mobility and Poverty Tsar Alan Milburn about many in work being little better off both naive and hypocritical.

Because it was ‘New’ Labour who created today’s low wage economy, aided and abetted by their mass-immigration policy which established Tony Blair’s credentials with the City of London and big business as Labour being capital-friendly not socialist.

Britain’s core manufacturing industries and the skilled workers who had enjoyed the protection of unionised closed shops up to Mrs Thatcher arriving in Downing Street and the wages that brought, were sacrificed to new technology, cheap imports and an economy based on financial services and inflated house prices.

The results of this are plain to see today, with poverty abounding, and home ownership now beyond the reach of most workers.

His idea that somehow withdrawing benefits from wealthier OAPs might help in some way is ridiculous, as the cost of bureaucracy involved in working it would exceed any savings, even if the IT systems didn’t fail as usual.

The best way to provide money would be to abolish the House of Lords, cut MPs’ pensions and make them pay the tax avoided on past expenses and capital gains on taxpayer-funded second homes, with some, like the new deputy speaker, reported as having made £1 million profit on hers.

D S Boyes, Rodley Lane, Leeds