Guy Shahar, Oxana and their son, Daniel. Oksana juggled her caring duties with two part-time roles but said the demands by the Department for Work and Pensions had left her feeling let down. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian
Over five-year period Oksana Shahar – who cares for her son – was paid a small amount more than carer’s allowance earnings limits allow
It was three weeks after Christmas when the bombshell letter arrived. Guy Shahar and his wife, Oksana, looked at each other in stunned disbelief.
They had followed the Guardian’s investigation into the carer’s allowance scandal that has left thousands of families with crippling debts and criminal records. Not once did they think they would join them.
“Important,” it read in big bold type. “You have been paid more carer’s allowance than you are entitled to. You now need to pay this money back”.
The sum being demanded by the government was staggering: £10,180.45.
“It just didn’t seem real,” said Guy, 53. “It was so surreal and outrageous we assumed there must have been some sort of mistake”.
There was no mistake. The family, from Feltham in west London, had unwittingly breached the strict earnings limit that has left hundreds of thousands of carers paying back huge sums to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in a saga that has been compared to the Post Office scandal.
Oksana, 53, had overstepped the earnings limit by just £1.92 a week on average while juggling caring for their son Daniel, 15, who has autism, with part-time roles as a school dinner lady and a zero-hours contract at Sports Direct.
…
Across the whole five-year period, she earned a total of £505 more than the rules allow – an average of £1.92 a week. Yet instead of repaying £505, the DWP is demanding £10,130.45 – plus a £50 “civil penalty”.
Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.Keir Starmer explains that he feels no shame or guilt benefitting personally from gifts from the rich and powerful while insisting on policies of severe austerity causing suffering and death.
Activists hold a banner as they blockade the entrance
MORE than 50 activists disrupted Drax’s annual investor meeting in London today, bringing proceedings to a halt for an hour.
The firm operates a wood-burning power plant in Yorkshire, which has received some £6 billion in green subsidies, while operating as Britain’s largest carbon emitter.
Despite a BBC investigation finding that it has burned wood from rare forests in Canada, the firm is set to continue to receive taxpayer money until at least 2031.
Activists blocked the entrance to the venue, preventing shareholders from entering, and dropped a large banner reading “Drax Kills.”
Inside, activists physically disrupted proceedings, rushing to the stage shouting “Drax kills,” before the meeting was forced to close.
Axe Drax spokesperson Sam Johnson said: “We’ve seen over the last year repeated desperate attempts from Drax to silence dissent — from spending millions working with the police to shut down peaceful protest, to silencing whistleblowers. “
Protesters rally outside the summit. Photo: Angela Christofilou
Hundreds of protesters rally outside global energy summit in London
HUNDREDS of protesters rallied outside a global energy security summit in London yesterday, urging Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer “not bow down to the fossil fuel lobby or give in to ridiculous far-right rhetoric.”
Demonstrators demanded that the government deliver a “credible plan” for a just transition for North Sea oil and gas workers as it bans new drilling in British waters.
This includes “grasping the huge opportunity to build out a domestic wind manufacturing sector” alongside investment in ports and setting up a dedicated training fund for offshore oil and gas workers. Stop Rosebank’s Lauren MacDonald said the demonstration was called to ensure “people’s voices are heard above the noise coming from the oil and gas companies and their cheerleaders in the US government.” “The public have made their feelings clear with a million people signing a petition to end drilling and we urge the UK government to listen,” she added.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
YOUTH DEMAND swarmed London on Saturday to demand a trade embargo on Israel and taxes on the super-rich to pay climate reparations.
Sixty-three activists split into two groups and disrupted traffic across the capital including at Aldgate East station, High Holborn, London Bridge and Oxford Circus.
Both teams then converged on Waterloo Bridge where they remained for half an hour, before two supporters were arrested under breach of Section 7 of the Public Order Act.A Youth Demand spokesperson said: “Since October 7 2023, more than 10 children in Gaza have lost one or both of their legs each day since Israel began indiscriminately murdering civilians. “The operations to save these children’s lives are often carried out without anaesthetic due to the ongoing blockade of food and medical supplies being prevented from entering Gaza. “The UK is providing the weapons and logistical support that are being used to blow these children’s limbs off. “What sort of ‘decent’ and ‘respectable’ society allows this to happen in 2025?? We need a total trade embargo with Israel right now!”
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
The Labour government has been making it increasingly difficult to organise the National Palestine marches, now they are using the draconian Public Order Act in an attempt to intimidate us.
It’s a truism to say governments don’t like protest, and after 18 months of Palestine demonstrations ours is making its distaste for mass mobilisation abundantly clear. It’s using the Met police as its enforcer and the BBC as its propaganda tool.
Smearing protesters as anti-semitic hate marchers failed to have any impact on the size or frequency of the demonstrations, so the government has resorted to the using the Public Order Act against the march organisers and is placing ever more restrictive exclusion orders on the protests.
Negotiations between organisers and the police have become increasingly arduous as time after time conditions are changed at late notice, restrictions are imposed for no justifiable reason other than to deter and confuse protesters and make organising more difficult. And now the police have charged and questioned under caution various members of the movement’s leadership, alongside some of its high profile supporters.
In this Orwellian world, 87 year-old Jewish Holocaust survivor, Stephen Kapos, was called in for questioning by the Met. Refusing to be cowed Kapos made clear that it is vital for us all to continue to protest for Palestine and speak out against our own government’s complicity in Israel’s genocide.
Khalid Abdalla, actor and activist, was also called in by the Met for questioning. In a statement made as he approached Charring Cross police station in central London he said he was both ‘incredibly sad’ but also ‘proud’ to attend his police interview. Sad because of what it says about the British state’s intension to subjugate the movement, proud to be on the right side of history.
Alex Kenny, Chair of StW, Lindsey German, StW Convenor, Andrew Murray, StW Deputy President and Sophie Bolt, General Secretary of CND, were all interviewed under caution this week.
Chris Nineham (StW) and Ben Jamal, Director of PSC have been charged under the Public Order Act and are awaiting trial.
The police hope that through a duel process of intimidating the movement’s leaders and imposing large restriction zones London marches will become confined to ever smaller areas and routes, especially on Saturdays, when it is becoming almost impossible to march through the centre of the city.
Heavily lobbied by Israeli zionists, including the Chief Rabbi, organisers have been told that protesters cannot march in the vicinity of a synagogue on Saturdays, regardless than there has been no reported incidents of intimidation at synagogues or indeed of Jewish people on the marches, and regardless that thousands of marchers themselves are Jewish. When the march organisers requested to also meet with Mark Rowley, the head of the Met Police, they were met with silence.
The police have even suggested we stop marching altogether, saying the marches have been going on too long. No acknowledgement that it’s the war on Gaza that has been going on for too long, or that it’s time for the genocide to stop.
Democratic governments are expected to facilitate demonstrations, whether they like it or not. Demonstrating is how our rights are won, and in this country we have a long and proud history of demonstrations. The right to protest is a fundamental part of living in a democracy. When opposition to government policy is significant, protest poses a challenge to the ruling elite, and the bigger the protest the bigger that challenge.
Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Foreign Minister David Lammy confirms that UK government and military are active participants in Israel’s genocides and that the F-35 parts that they suspended from supplying to Israel are instead simply diverted via the United States. He says see https://youtu.be/QILgUHrdWRE
Activists hold a banner as they blockade the entrance
