IF you visited a casino and had a bet on the roulette table betting on red or black you would have a 50 per cent chance of winning.

If you sign on at Middlesbrough Job Centre you also have the same chance holding onto your benefit – 50 per cent.

So this is what it's come to - holding onto your dole money has now turned into a game of chance; a toss of a coin.

In the week the Tories announced record employment figures other records were being broken.

In Britain one million people a year are being sanctioned.

More than 23,000 benefit sanctions were dished out on Teesside in the two years to last September.

One of the largest hits was in Middlesbrough with a record 9,614 sanctions, closely followed by Redcar and Cleveland on 6,169.

Jolly George Osborne boasted in his budget that unemployment is going down because of a buoyant economy.

Wrong.

Unemployment is going down because targets for sanctions are shooting up.

With another £12bn of unbudgeted benefit cuts to come under a Tory-led Government the dice is loaded against the poor, unwaged and underprivileged.

S Dixon, Redcar.