I wasn't personalising the argument Roz.

I wouldn't question for a minute your contributions, but you're hardly alone in that respect. Isn't that what tax and national insurance is all about? We pay in for as long as we can in the hope society will support us one day. It's a balance.

I do resent the suggestion that your kids are somehow going to single-handedly prop up society when they start working. Don't the people paying tax now matter too?

I like many others have made my own pension arrangements anyway.

As it happens I have been paying tax and national insurance for 20 years until redundancy forced me to survive on whatever work I could find - temporary, part time or otherwise. I've done everything possible to stay off benefits but I still seem to fall through every gap there is - and there are loads more people like me.

I do feel the tax credit system has been very ill-conceived and there are many who have been forgotten and made worse off by successive governments. At least the increase in the personal allowance will help some of them.

And we're going to have a range of perspectives on here - we can't all think the same.