I WRITE in reply to county council leader Keith Mitchell on Radio Oxford and in the Oxford Mail (February 14).

On radio, in a discussion with other politicians on cuts, he commented: “You would be surprised how many old people manage their budgets”. Cuts in care are presented as free choice in the council’s self-directed help booklets.

Without the work of cash-strapped CABs, Agnes Smith and other centres, many more of us would not have received help.

My concern is for old, frail people with mental and physical deterioration who can’t manage.

Home care costs can be more than £900 per week. This is met by means-testing or being forced to sell your home, unless you are rich.

More than 30,000 die each year with a cold-related illness and three million live below the official poverty line. Meanwhile £3bn in benefits went unclaimed by pensioners, the Government has revealed.

The wide support for the anti-cuts demonstration confirms that Mr Mitchell’s claim that opponents are “deficit denying lefties” is off the mark.

They actually include children in support of youth centres and libraries, doctors wanting to keep the NHS public, trade unionists against cuts to social services, old age pensioners and the disabled fighting to keep their swimming pool open.

Winston Churchill when a Liberal is reported to have said: ‘The Conservative Party is for the rich against the poor”.

JOE RICHARDS, Overmead Green, Blackbird Leys, Oxford