MIKE Dukes (In My View March 6) is absolutely right in highlighting how the coalition government is demonising benefit claimants and the disabled whilst the wealthy and powerful can apparently break the rules with impunity.

The most blatant example of this is the HSBC tax scandal. The authorities knew about this five years ago yet there has only ever been one prosecution.

Yet in 2013 alone, 1,046,398 claimants were sanctioned, losing all income for weeks on end, and often for trivial or even incorrect reasons.

No-one should be surprised at this discrepancy, after all the Tories have always put the interests of the rich first. This is a back-scratching relationship – a recent fundraising bash in London cost £15,000 a head and at the same event in 2014, the wealth of the guests added up to £22 billion. So when George Osborne says that he is going to get tough with tax dodgers, this should be taken with a huge pinch of salt.

GLYN TUDOR, Southampton.