Isn't that actually quite responsible? We've had election after election of social care being ignored and deferred. She's decided to deal with it and actually be honest upfront about her plan.
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Theresa May calls General Election on 8th June.
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Isn't that actually quite responsible? We've had election after election of social care being ignored and deferred. She's decided to deal with it and actually be honest upfront about her plan.
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AlterEgo
Veteran Member
The problem for May is the plan shafts a lot of her core voters.
I reckon May could pledge to replace the NHS with mandatory euthanasia, and she'd still win the election.
And that's what she's doing. OK, she's not actually proposing to replacing the NHS with mandatory euthanasia (although don't let That Useless Hunt read this in case he gets ideas), but she's pushing through lots of her less popular policies at a time when there's no realistic prospect of another party winning.
Listen to this lovely little Orwellian snapshot taken from the Conservative Party Manifesto (buried back on Page 82).
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
I have to admit I somewhat agree with both of these comments. It seems pretty clear that The Conservatives are taking advantage of their huge poll lead to bring in some policies that are going to be unpopular, but which they believe are essential. Undoubtedly, they had already realized that this would lose them some votes, but had figured that their lead was big enough to withstand that.
Personally, I see many, many reasons not to vote Conservative - from their treatment of the disabled and many less fortunate members of society, to the erosion of rights of people at workplaces and the growth of zero-hours contracts etc., the crisis in the NHS, their ideological pursuit of austerity (although we haven't heard as much about that lately) to their disregard for democracy in the way the propose fiddling with the electoral system to their own advantage. All these scream to me that the Conservatives really shouldn't be allowed anywhere near Government.
But something does need to be done to secure adequate funding for social care. I'm not sure whether the Conservatives' approach here is the right one - I can see significant practical problems with what May is proposing, and fear it will lead to many injustices (And I wonder if the Conservatives have seriously thought through how difficult it will be to avoid myriad loopholes whereby people find ways to dispose of property to the benefit of their family before they die, thereby avoiding social care charges). But there is a moral dilemma of who pays for illnesses that are hugely expensive to provide care for over many years. I'm not sure to be honest what a good solution would look like, but we can be pretty certain that almost any sustainable solution is going to disadvantage some people, and and will be very unpopular. But the problem does need to be tackled.
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Their approach to social care will just hammer the NHS even harder. When social care fails, it's the NHS that takes up the slack. When people aren't able to afford social care, then where do we send them when they leave hospital? If it's not safe to discharge someone without care, they'll either be stuck in hospital, or just come bouncing right back.
Busaholic
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If it weren't for Scotland, I believe it would now be quite possible for Labour to have more seats than the Tories on June 9th, but don't discount the kamikaze factor. The Telegraph newspapers are worried enough to start digging up what they consider to be the 'dirt' on Corbyn's alleged IRA sympathies decades ago, followed up by Sky TV (of course), and Corbyn and his advisers, instead of saying in effect ''hundreds, if not thousands, of lives have been spared by engaging in talks with IRA/ Sinn Fein, whereas the Tebbit approach would have seen the armed conflict continue with those deaths guaranteed'' they go on the defensive or refuse to answer the questions.
The Conservative Manifestos new approach to 'social care' costs could well prove to be their Poll Tax reprise if (a) enough of their usual supporters of a certain age realise what is actually being proposed, as opposed to the gloss that certain newspapers predominately read by that age group will attempt to put on it and (b) the Labour Party and LibDems get to grips with the subject and highlight it at every opportunity, meaning Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry being told to keep their mouths shut.
The £200 fuel allowance for pensioners also has the capacity for losing the Tories a huge number of votes. What they are proposing is not just that higher-rate taxpayers lose the allowance, as might be assumed, but that 80% of pensioners would lose out i.e. those, like me, who claim no pension credit would not get it either.
If LibDems were able to claw back some of the seats they lost to Cons in 2015, then we might have a much reduced Tory majority. I can only say that in my area of St Ives the Cons are really worried (although UKIP's decision not to contest the seat helps them greatly) hence the rush to get Empress May down here at the first opportunity and even Andrea Leadsom was brought out of purdah to support the lacklustre candidate ex-MP.
The Conservative Manifestos new approach to 'social care' costs could well prove to be their Poll Tax reprise if (a) enough of their usual supporters of a certain age realise what is actually being proposed, as opposed to the gloss that certain newspapers predominately read by that age group will attempt to put on it and (b) the Labour Party and LibDems get to grips with the subject and highlight it at every opportunity, meaning Diane Abbott and Emily Thornberry being told to keep their mouths shut.
The £200 fuel allowance for pensioners also has the capacity for losing the Tories a huge number of votes. What they are proposing is not just that higher-rate taxpayers lose the allowance, as might be assumed, but that 80% of pensioners would lose out i.e. those, like me, who claim no pension credit would not get it either.
If LibDems were able to claw back some of the seats they lost to Cons in 2015, then we might have a much reduced Tory majority. I can only say that in my area of St Ives the Cons are really worried (although UKIP's decision not to contest the seat helps them greatly) hence the rush to get Empress May down here at the first opportunity and even Andrea Leadsom was brought out of purdah to support the lacklustre candidate ex-MP.
Busaholic mentioned Corbyn and the IRA above (Sorry mate, just didn't want to copy and paste your whole comment). The way I see it he has condemned bombing people and said that talking is the way forward, I really can't argue with that. What or who the Tories and the right wing press have failed to mention is Maria Gatland who is a Tory councillor in Croydon and former member of the IRA who went to Europe to buy weapons. Now I'm not saying we can't forgive and forget but how have the right wing press missed this?
EM2
Established Member
The thing is, as house prices go up and up, and fewer and fewer people can afford to buy a house, who will be paying for the social care then?
Well yes I can see the Tory Social Care plan not being particularly popular and certainly it may cost them some votes although in some respects its better and other respects not, but then I ask the question what is Labour policy on this and there doesn't seem to be much about, and frankly I wouldn't put it past Labour to bring something similar to this after the election with a lower limit than the Tories currently propose.
Not much of an argument is it really. Yeah its bad but you reckon that just maybe Labour might do the same but worse! And maybe Theresa May might demand the first born of every household as tribute. Actually I wouldn't put that past her.
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Not much of an argument is it really. Yeah its bad but you reckon that just maybe Labour might do the same but worse! And maybe Theresa May might demand the first born of every household as tribute. Actually I wouldn't put that past her.
And I wouldn't put anything past the likes of Mcdonnell
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AlterEgo
Veteran Member
This is why the payment for social care ought be taken from your income. Just slap 1% on income tax. I'd be delighted to pay for quality care.
I wouldn't argue with that. Plenty would of course.
Ring fence it and call it "compulsory insurance" and all the economists are happy because it miraculously becomes "private", rather than "public" sector expenditure.
Indeed. The Tories plan is that your house is your insurance anyway unless you cark it quickly.
DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Twitter seems to be active with Damien Green's (Conservative Work and Pensions Secretary) interview with Andrew Marr today, which apparently (I've not seen it myself) contains these gems of insightful thinking:
Marr: Where do you get an extra £8bn for the NHS?
Damian Green: A lot of it is from retargeting money from elsewhere in the NHS
And:
Damian Green: 'our manifesto is not uncosted. We just haven't costed it yet'
Marr: Where do you get an extra £8bn for the NHS?
Damian Green: A lot of it is from retargeting money from elsewhere in the NHS
And:
Damian Green: 'our manifesto is not uncosted. We just haven't costed it yet'
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AlterEgo
Veteran Member
It's only your insurance against things like dementia. Better to go via a quick cancer if you want to leave an asset. Is this really what May wants? It really is a tax on people who:
A) have a house worth over £100k, and
B) Have a passage to death that involves social care rather than a purely medical route.
The injustice of it makes me want to put a brick through the window of the local Con Club.
The only small mercy of the policy is that it might make us have an honest debate about social care and the quality of life elderly people might expect (and what we as a society can afford!).
Xenophon PCDGS
Veteran Member
The expressed wish stated above is best left to diffuse itself in time, whereas the actuality occurred at the political party office properties of Jo Cox, Angela Eagle and Mary Creagh.
Add:
C) Can't afford / aren't brave enough to go to Switzerland (given that our politicians believe that suffering before a lingering death -- and, if they are Tories, paying massively for the privilege -- is very good for us).
dcsprior
Member
Misuse of apostrophes.
It could be claimed to be valid use of the apostrophe for omission - it replaces the letters "on" in Britons.
Similarly using an apostrophe in plurals of other shortened words may be technically acceptable - e.g. photo's, with the apostrophe replacing "graph"
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Or you could complicate it even more ...
One well-established convention is that an abbreviation that contains the first and last letters of the original word does not take a full-stop (thus "Mr", "Dr", etc) but that abbreviations which stop a word short, as it were, do (thus "Brit." or "photo."). So do "Brit" and "photo" represent abbreviations following another and pretty modern convention of generally missing the full-stop (as I have done with "etc" above), or are they abbreviations that have now become accepted as words in their own right and so are complete as they are? If they are complete as they are, then the plurals will be "Brits" or "photo(e)s" following the normal patterns, with no place for any apostrophes. (And I steer clear of launching my personal diatribe against IRA/USA "Brit" which I find a deeply offensive term for "Briton" now widely taken up by populist politicians -- even if it isn't bad enough to be called "Briton" or "British" rather than "English", "Scottish", or "Welsh".
It has begun. Rather than debating the economics of this and the best balance between state and individual, public discourse will now just reduce it to a 'dementia tax' and portray any attempt to put social care on a sustainable footing as an example of evil cruel Tories.
Howardh
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Alzhiemer's/Dementia tax...totally.
Let's see what all those who think it's a wonderful idea would do in this case.
Three years ago a working man, renting, decides his parents (85+) are too ill to look after themselves, one is developing dementia.
Choice - either put them both into a home, get 24hr care, or take the caring on himself. (a) and (b) would ultimately cost the state £000's when the costs overtake the assets.
So they go for option (c) where son packs in the job, sells his car and returns "home" to start 24-hr caring.
The parents deteriorate, the one with dementia worsens until they can't communicate, eat properly, wash or toilet.
Son requires lots of outside help - social services determine it as a "two handed job"; which is 2x£15/hr for any help...paid privately. Rare week-long respite breaks cost £1500 for the cover alone.
With all this excellent care, parents continue to live...but their savings are being used up and eventually the state pays for the extra care in their own house.
Eventually they die, leaving a bill of £200k. At that point - does the son with no savings, no job, in his early 60's be thrown out of the house he was expected to inherit as "reward" for all the time and sacrifice; o that bill could be paid for?
And if so - who will support that person? £100k inheritance allowance - if there is any - doesn't cover 5 - 10 years of lost wages or even buy a half-decent retirement apartment.
OR
Anyone in that situation now (as in the lady I know who cared for - and lost - her husband, lives in a council flat, and is now caring for her mum in mum's house) would look at it - and say no; I can't risk being homeless and wageless. Mum - you will have to go to a nursing home....adding to the strain already there, adding to the eventual cost to the NHS/taxpayer and probably shortening the life of the patient.
If carers get treated like (am I allowed to say?) ****, then they will just not bother. Trouble is, in most people's lives they don't exist...hidden away, you won't see them down the pub because they can't get out...too busy caring.
I know one who was invited to a "dementia carer's conference" but couldn't go....as his mother couldn't be left alone. That person might be sat at this keyboard.
So eventually you are creating problems down the line, and almost everyone on here will require care themselves. Ever seen a *home*? Want to end your life there rather than in your own house with your own family - a house that the Tories want to snatch away?
So if you want fewer carers, a shortage of places in understaffed care homes, overworked staff, more costs to the public purse, dumping in a home yourself, and Brexit fans, more immigrants to fill the shortages, then vote Tory.
Enjoy the rest of the day. I've now got to lift mum off the toilet, wipe her down and get her dressed.
They're specifically NOT stopping people from ending their days at their own home by allowing deferral of costs. And if people do need residential care, they get to keep £100k in their estate rather than £23k.
But more broadly, the points you raise are of course good ones and perhaps there should be a scheme to help carers who depend on the inheritance for their future home.
It's far better to make these arguments in detail as you have rather than to just invent clichés like Dementia Tax which has the effect of ending sensible discussion.
But more broadly, the points you raise are of course good ones and perhaps there should be a scheme to help carers who depend on the inheritance for their future home.
It's far better to make these arguments in detail as you have rather than to just invent clichés like Dementia Tax which has the effect of ending sensible discussion.
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EM2
Established Member
Howardh
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Absolutely!
A key policy which had obviously been carefully thought through and considered...in tatters. Not because they thought it was wrong, no, but because the polls gave a massive surge towards labour.
Bloody chancers, the lot of them, and the country trusts them with the EU? What are the chances we will end up now with a Freedom of Movement agreement with all the countries in North Africa instead?
"There will be no General Election" - May.
"We will take the houses off the dead with dementia" - May
"I'm Strong and Stable and you can trust me with the country" - May
I wouldn't trust her to blow her own nose.
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