Straw has used sorry as a meaningless stock reply before to appease when people complain; he used it for instance to appease minorities when he apologised, from his Marxist perspective, for the existence of the British Empire and revised in the best socialist tradition the colonial past

David Cartright, Birmingham,

More cheap words.
I remember Jack Straw.He was the chap who said he was going to review the law on people" having a go ".Good for a sound bite at the party conference.Jack and I new that was little if anything needed altering,but as I say, more cheap words from a cheap Government.

robert everitt, wolverhampton,

Are we honestly supposed to believe that Gordon Brown, the man who'd been touted as an economic genius & the best chancellor we've ever had, didn't fully understand the implications of his own tax proposals...?
Sorry, but I don't buy that for one minute...

JC, Bournemouth, UK

Jack Straw, Minister of Injustice.

Listening to him on the radio today, he predicted Labour can win the next election!!!

Best laugh I've had for a while.

Paul, West Midlands, UK

Even though I'm losing money because of this, Mr Straw, I'll happily forgive you lot if you'll just let me loose in John Lewis armed with a copy of that list.

W Martin, Tenterden, UK

Sorry doesn't pay the bills NOW . Utility providers won't wait until the next pre budget report for their money, so why should we ? What happens next year ? To only think about compensating some of those who are losing out is wrong .

sandra, gloucester, uk

Oh boy, roll on Election day.

ronnie, uk, uk

The only solution is FLAT TAX - then everyone would pay a fair share, and the rich would not get better off at the expense of the poor which is what today's system does in all countries.

margaret bleach, Ottawa, Canada

Graham - those retired under 65 can't be on incomes that small if they're emailing The Times from Thailand can they?

J.Wilkes, Gloucester,

Please, someone correct me if I am wrong -- but does this not also affect very small businesses? Especially the new start-ups and the sole traders. If turnover this year is too low (or indeed at any level) --- we loose to HMRC. How will we be recompensed Gordon & Alistair?

steveh, Halesworth, England

I need petrol to drop in price fast.
Two occassions I've had to call in sick in the last 5 weeks because I cant afford to get to work.
What the hells happpening!

Phill, Cheshire, England

It only took a simple calculation and a equally simple spreadsheet to calculate the losses and gains. The simple solution also would only have needed raising the threshold level above the combined threshold and 10% band. I would have thought our government could work that out. Let us have a change

Tony, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex

If their best brains missed it, its an alarming indication of just how stupid the government really is. I spotted this scam within seconds of GB announcing it and was dumbfounded how long it took for experts to notice......
GB has now made too many mistakes and U turns to be credible.

Andrew, Sheffield,

This, coming from a labour government defies belief! Are they in so much of a stupor that even fundamentally flawed decisions such abolishing the 10p rate could not be seen by somebody in the process and stopped in it's tracks before getting anywhere near policy level. Incredible!

Gobinder Singh, Birmingham,

That's a first for Labour who are normally blind to their faults and usually resort to lies and spin. Well done Straw, it wont save you bacon at the next election but well done anyway.

D Case, Newquay,

Sounds like the best bet is to give up work and go on benifits or maybe not. Confused, well not on May 1st thats for sure.

Chris, Peterborough, UK

So, it is as we all thought, not only are these Ministers stupid, but obviously dunces as well. Never mind sorry Straw, what are you going to do about it, because at the moment you have only proposed a complicated form of State Benefit for just a few of those affected?

Neil, Gloucestershire, England

WHO IS HE TO SAY SORRY - TOO LATE!
Don't know if the readers remember Jack Straw on the David Frost Sunday am program years ago -
He turned round and said 'The British public don't think longer than a weekend' OH YES WE DO!
I FOUND THIS AN INSULT!!!
My memory will not forget this comment

Margaret, Bristol, UK

"Sometimes even with the best brains available to government ..."

Sometimes the most ideological brains set policy against all common sense. Loic Wacquant's Prisons of Poverty gives an excellent account on the criminalization and control of poverty that New Labour uncritically embraces.

ALMD, Lisbon, Portugal

Good grief -- best brains?!

It wasn't exactly rocket science that axing the 10p rate would handicap those on low incomes.

Perhaps if politicians spent less time thinking about their own narrow self-interest, they might appreciate how people live in the real world.

Good at? Expense claims.

Patrick North, Newcastle upon Tyne,

Typical of Nu Labour, a completely insincere apology by a propt up Cabinet Minister, followed by the 'old' now lets move on strategy. When will the low paid realise that Nu- Labour is not the party looking after your interests, but they assume, often rightly, that you will always vote Labour.

pw, Banstead, surrey

The "best brains" crack make sense if you interpret it to mean that Labour's best brains thought the rest of us are so stupid that we wouldn't notice.

jon livesey, Sunnyvale, CA/USA

Not sure about that, Bob - thinking of the University Challenge (professionals) finals - seemed a pretty good demonstration of the best brains in the country to me. All members of both teams were civil servants. Not at the Treasury, admittedly...

Tom, UK,

Rising the tax rate means RAISING the tax rate so I don't get Jack Straw's "apology." If you knowingly enact a policy with a specific consequence of raising taxes in mind how can then you turn around and pretend you didn't foresee that intended consequence!

Shalini Gupta, London,

The super-rich have flourished in the 10 years under Labour, while the ordinary worker has been hit by stealth taxes galore, and now the abolition of the 10p tax-band. This Labour government are a disgrace.

Phil, London,

unreal, they didn't know.. yea right.
gordon brown is without a shadow of doubt a size 1 man in a size 10 job.

and expecting the poor to use tax credits is just a joke. tax credits have the potential to push people further into poverty if the "best brains" over pay them.

billy, edinburgh,

It's quite simple, it's a deliberate ploy because it puts people on benefits, which is exactly what they want, because once they are on benefits, the government then has control over every area of their lives. It's all about keeping the masses downtrodden and growing the government machine.

Paul Downes, Milton Keynes, Bucks

Brains? Well, it's refreshing to see SOME optimism, however misguided, in these troubled times...

Ross Liversidge, Ripon, N. Yorks

Straw, is simply sticking the knife in Brown's back to hasten his demise, and positioning himself to take over as PM once he's gone.

Andrew, Lewes, England

"Sometimes even with the best brains available to government there are inadvertent consequences of changes"

Yeah, but we are not talking about anything difficult here, just very simple and basic arithmetic. I was blogging on the day of the 07 budget about how labour were doubling the poor's taxes.

Ken Hall, Barrow in Furness, UK

Best brains!!
If you scoured the UK to find the best 100 brains, none of them, NONE, would be working in the Government.

Bob, Warrington, Cheshire

I think the first priority of most MPs is best guessing their expenses returns and whatever other freebies they can find on offer. Then Income Tax , in whatever guise or rate is left to the Chancellor's best guess, and is just fine with them until the wheel comes off as it surely has.

Robert, Kirk Ella,, East Yorks.,

What makes Jack Straw think that the Treasury-headed by Brown- have the best brains?

Charles Daniels, Lady Lake, Florida

Let's just get the facts straight. Gordon Brown, no doubt against the wishes of much of the Cabinet, imposed this ludicrous charge on the most vulnerable in our society. The liver-bellied amongst them let him get away with it then so what chance of a volte-face after next week's elections?

A.Williams, Cradley Heath,

They thought they could get away with because it would largely hit low-paid working males - and they are disposable in this most feminist of governments.

Bob Grant, Hull,

If Straw and other Labour ministers couldn't work out that part-time low paid workers, those without children and pensioners under 65 would be worse off then they shouldn't be in their jobs. It was obvious to most reasonably numerate people who would be hit. Gordon tried a tax con that didn't work

Donna Walker, Effingham, Surrey

Words of Straw only !!!!!

Ian Payne, WALSALL,

"Even the best brains failed to see that the poor would be hit".
Funny, I worked this out as soon as Brown announced it in 2007, and within 10 minutes had worked out, with projections for 2008 pension increases, that I would be £15 worse off every month, without cost of living increses included.

Anil Chatterjee, Manchester,

So the best brains in the country couldn't forsee that doubling the tax rate on the lowest earners in the country would have a detrimentsl effect. Well I never. They should have gone for advice at the local pub because the average man in the street/pub could have told them that.

Peter, Brixham, Devon

I can't spend sorry - tax credits don't help as I can't qualify for them what are they actually going to do help those retired under 65 on small incomes?

Graham, Pattaya, Thailand

I really fail to see how this wasn't fully understood, how did they not recognise the full impact of this? I just don't believe it.

Also, the back dated work around is a disgrace, how are the poorest people going to cope until the gov't deem they will apply this?

Ivory tower springs to mind.

Justin, London,

"The best brains had failed to see the poor would be hit" - an 8 year old child could have worked it out. Are they all brain dead? Low paid workers (like myself) are already finding it impossible to get onto the property ladder. and are worst hit by rises in petrol and food prices. Its disgusting.

Rachel, Chester,