THE back-bench revolt in the Commons over the level of the state pension -- increased by just 75p this month -- is more than an embarrassment for the government.

For, although its discomfiture is indeed heightened by this rebellion by some 41 Labour MPs -- among them Pendle's Gordon Prentice -- being one of the biggest since the party came to power, something else is signified by it.

This is that, once again, we hear an ominous rumble of discontent from the Labour heartlands over a government allegedly out of touch with the basic concerns of its traditional voters.

True, it only recently responded by turning on the spending tap for health, education and transport to assuage its growling core vote.

But this balm is too slow working to soothe the millions of older people on the basic pension who have looked to Labour for almost three years now to restore its link with earnings that the Tories cut in 1980.

With their increases being pegged instead to prices, they estimate that they are now £30 a week worse off.

Contrasted with that sum, their 75p rise this year -- and Labour's adherence to the Thatcherite formula that keeps it so low while all around they see today's workers and the country generally getting wealthier -- is regarded as an insult by the legions of poorer old people dependent solely on the state pension.

The extra winter heating allowance, free TV licences for the over 75s and the Minimum Income Guarantee campaign to increase the take-up of top-up benefits among the poorest old folk are regarded as but small sops when their demand is a "proper" pension. It is significant that the list of constituencies of the rebel MPs forms a near-perfect map of traditional Old Labour territory -- the less well-off regions and the inner-city areas where many former working folk have only the state pension on which to rely.

It may be that their MPs are more in tune with their concerns than a leadership apparently obsessed by spin and the politically-correct values of new metropolitan socialists and are, quite rightly, reminding the government of them and where its core vote lies.

But, as the general election approaches, there is also an element of alarm among back-bench Labour MPs that many of the disaffected, grumbling grassroots may rebel against the party at the ballot box or stay away.

They also fear that committed Tory voters will turn out in strength or Liberal Democrat candidates will mop up the tactical votes of the discontented.

And with 50 Labour MPs looking at the dole if there is a swing of just four per cent against Labour, last night's rebellion was also an exercise in donning lifebelts as well as one that rammed home the pensioners' plea for more.

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