Labour's latest policy announcement

I don’t think you have much understanding of ‘fraud’ freyja. You ask who would sue ‘the public purse’. What?

Your husband’s experience was not ‘government fraud’. Nor is the situation of WASPIs. - the law was not changed without notice.

You seem to think that any action by the government which may operate to someone’s disadvantage is fraud. It isn’t. Try to dislodge that chip on your shoulder about ‘the little people’.

I have no interest in ANYTHING keir starmer has to say .
What about all the lies he’s told us re brexit ,the beergate incident and so on!

It’s time to wake up and smell the coffee now Zoe65.

What are you talking about Zoe?

Everyone but everyone surely knows by now there was no "beergate". It was all in thd vivid imagination of this lying government and its lying client newspapers. By the time the Hartlepool by-election took place covid levels had fallen, and the lockdown regulations, had been eased. The people having something to eat and finishing off a days work for the by-election did nothing wrong.

On 8 July 2022, Durham Constabulary announced that all those , including Rayner and Starmer, had been cleared of any wrongdoing. By then, the government was in crisis, and on 7 July Johnson had announced his resignation.

I've no idea what you mean by Starmer telling lies re Brexit. I have a feeling you have been reading discredited sources. It certainly sounds like your sources are very much in the slow lane, but eventually some truth will reach you.

Well Germanshepherdsmum thank you for your passionate response and I am quite happy for you to explain what fraud really is.

As for my husband's predicament, after Brexit he was charged two lots taxes each month on his pension. However instead of meeting and talking to a real person from HMRC to resolve the situation my 72 year old DH spent hours on the phone, most of the time being cut off after waiting for over an hour. This went on day after day for 6 months until finally my DH was threatened with legal action for not paying his taxes. It was only after 2 years working with an accountant, solicitor and our MP did we manage to prove HMRC were wrong and the truth that my DH did not owe any taxes. HMRC made a mistake. All we wanted was to talk to them to find out what the error was, but they would not listen. Sound familiar?

It seems to me a systematic failure of the government controlling the public purse to admit they make mistakes just like the rest of us, but that can't possible be true because they are the trusted people of the public purse.

Anyway enough said I had my rant and will leave it at that.

I will vote for the party that will make sure these problems are dealt with as soon as they occur, not blame us and accept they, or their machines, are always right. Before assuming the people are wrong they must question what has gone wrong with the system and prove they are right before pointing the finger.

Still pigs do fly in the country

Making mistakes in your accounts is very expensive because if HMRC think there is something dodgy they will estimate what is owing and it’s up to you to prove them wrong.

I have a cousin who is a tax inspector, she enjoys catching out the tax fiddlers, most are just stupid “forgetting” to tell the accountant about selling something. Most pay up the tax and the penalty without fuss, they know fighting will cost them a lot more, only occasionally does it get to court. “Doing a physical inspection of the business, I can tell who is tax dodging within a couple of hours, I know all the fiddles”

I understand where you are coming Katie but the point I was trying to make was my DH like the Sub Post Office people did not make any mistakes but it was assumed they had.

The problem arose when no one would speak to us and so we had to fight the system to prove his innocence. Not easy when there is no communication or you are talking to robots, which is happening more and more.

Our DS, this Christmas sorted out our BT problems as we have very poor internet connection, once again only getting a robotic answers from BT. DS discovered that BT were over charging us £70 a month for something we didn't have or need. it took him 2 days to sort that one out and he hasn't finished yet. Another on ongoing problem.

Yes, it can be said that in all this we are stupid and ignorant of today's systems. We are not technically minded with very little knowledge of how things work, which makes us and those like us vulnerable and open to abuse.

Unfortunately ignorance is no defence but thank goodness for people like Martin Lewis, Rip off Britain and our accountant who do make us aware.

Some companies can be diabolical with fixing problems, the phone agents just don’t escalate it to someone who can fix it, a couple of times after emailing them for a few weeks I’ve canceled the DD.
That got their attention and it got fixed, e-mail is useful because it’s evidence and proves how useless they are.