SIR – Now that the Chancellor’s Budget was devoted to a large extent to wealthy pensioners, can I take Tory supporters back to Mr Osborne’s pre-election speech saying that his plan to “balance the books” would take five years and “would not hurt the disadvantaged”?

Since, after four years, he has succeeded in reducing the Budget deficit (not to be confused with the national deficit of £1.6 trillion) by only 35 per cent and will now take until 2018-20 to eliminate, can someone please tell me which of our nation’s vulnerable is George Osborne not hurting?

Alan Holdsworth, Sandside Close, Bradford