WHILE I admire Tory Graham Robb’s valiant attempt to put spin on this dreadful Government’s autumn statement (HAS, Dec 14), I have to tell him that, sorry Graham, nobody’s buying it.

Official Treasury documents show that George Osborne has been forced to squeeze tax credits for workers to cover the cost of the mounting unemployment bill.

The Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) claims the decision to peg welfare payments at the below inflation rate of one per cent will raise £6.7bn by 2016-17.

The money is needed to plug the £6bn extra cost of the social security bill, with the OBR forecasting the jobless figure to rise 340,000 by 2016.

This move will hit 60 per cent of working households, leaving single earning families with children £534-a-year worse off.

An Ipsos Mori poll for the Evening Standard last week showed a majority opposed the Chancellor’s decision to hit lowincome workers.

It found that 59 per cent backed Labour leader Ed Miliband who branded the squeeze as a “tax on strivers”, and that seven in ten people thought the rich were not paying their fair share.

And the gap between GDP and the deficit becomes bigger by the day. Same old Tories.

Charlie Kay, Bishop Auckland.

I CANNOT be the only one tired of statements by Tory MPs such as Stockton South’s James Wharton (Echo, Dec 13).

On Page One he states: “When wages in the private sector and public sector have faced years of freezes…”

How odd that he never adds “…except for company directors, CEOs of large companies, city bankers and others”, whose salaries were reported to have risen by ten per cent in the last year, as they have done for many years.

Eric Gendle, Nunthorpe, Middlesbrough.

CHRISTMAS is a time for miracles and David Cameron has just produced one (Echo, Dec 13).

He claims the jobless total has fallen by 82,000 in the last quarter, the largest quarterly fall since the spring of 2001.

He also says across the North- East the number of people out of work fell by a staggering 11,000.

Strange that, because here on Teesside only 73 people came off Job Seekers Allowance (JSA) in the last month.

And nationwide, only 3,000 people came off JSA in the last quarter.

So where did the other 79,000 claimants disappear to?

Incidentally, I hear the failed Work Programme is cramming in thousands of extra unemployed clients – 79,000 to be precise.

I wonder if there is any connection.

Stephen Dixon, Redcar.