WELL done, Jean Nisbet, for an intelligent, compassionate and feisty letter (January 23).

It provided proof that, in spite of being rendered almost invisible by certain parts of the media and society, female pensioners are still a force to be reckoned with in Scotland today.

Ms Nisbet strongly disputed the suggestions, by some, that it is pensioners, "benefits" that cause others in our society to suffer need. She argued clearly that all so-called "benefits" have in fact been paid for, over the years, by us as taxpayers. They are not charitable donations from a benevolent government. She lays the blame for the poverty being suffered in Scotland today where it belongs, on employers paying low wages and, I would add, on a complicit Westminster unwilling to mandate at least a living wage.

It is the oldest trick in the book to attempt to turn one section of society against another in an attempt to distract attention from the true culprits. Ms Nisbet uses two words in her letter that seem to me to say it all - shame and angry. Could it be that the huge swing to engagement in politics at the referendum were fuelled, in part, by the fact that many in Scotland are ashamed at the way the poor and the needy are being demonised and angry that we seem powerless to, prevent it?

Patricia Dishon,

62 Inchview Terrace, Edinburgh.