A ONE-MAN campaign has been launched by a Purbeck councillor to protest against huge council tax rises.

Sporting a 10-gallon hat and with his protest board, pensioners' champion Cllr Fred Drane, has been seated outside the post office at Upton.

The local and district Liberal Democrat councillor has been attracting a great deal of interest and support from people collecting their pensions.

"I am not a rich Texan, I am a poor Dorset pensioner," says the board, pointing out that pensioners got a 2.5 per cent increase - MPs pensions went up by 25 per cent - while council tax in Purbeck rose by 24.5 per cent.

This was a direct result of the government's new formula for funding local authorities, said Cllr Drane.

"The government is blaming the council and the council is blaming the government. Until that is sorted out it still goes up and up," said Cllr Drane.

"They think they are being exonerated by blaming someone else," he said.

He is handing out letters urging people to send them to Nick Raynsford, Minister for Local Government and the Regions, pointing out that pensioners on fixed incomes cannot cope with such increases.

"It's the government," said Mrs Verena Vincent, 82, treasurer of the residents' association of Maple Lodge. "We have got to press the government to give much more money to the council. But they don't always spend it wisely."

"It's disgusting the way the government gives themselves big rises and pensions," said John Northwood, 70, also of Maple Lodge.

Cllr Drane said he thought PM Tony Blair was spending too much time with rich Texans like George W Bush and believed everybody lived like that.

A member of the National Pensioners' Convention, Cllr Drane, 68, will be taking his 10-gallon hat and his campaign to a mass lobby of Parliament on September 10 to help draw attention to the financial plight of older people.