The ongoing long term care spat between the parties has been unedifying for all concerned. For me, it echoes the policy debate from the late 1990s in the twilight of Conservative political dominance. The Conservative Secretary of State for Social Security Peter Lilly devised a plan to bring in an additional contributory element to the state pension called basic pension plus though its full effect would only have been felt by 2040, a date far in the future even when today’s pensions reforms are considered. Whatever else it was, it was not a plan to privatise the state pension outright but that is what the leader of the Opposition Tony Blair implied it was. It was perhaps a good old fashioned way of frightening the electorate instead of debating the details of the policy, though it really wasn’t necessary given the poll lead New Labour held at the time.
The recent warning and poster by David Cameron about the £20,000 death tax involving one option that the Government has put forward to deal with long term care issue has echoes of the previous debate. In one way it is worse, in that a political consensus has been broken before it was even properly constructed. Blair’s comments back in the 1990s probably frustrated any hopes for a pensions consensus for a decade at least.
Here however I pause for thought a little. Care, pensions indeed spending and taxing of all sorts can sometimes benefit from consensus particularly when policies are desperately needed and when the solutions themselves are long term and therefore may not be given the political priority they need. However perhaps consensus also prevents issues that are desperately in need of debate from being debated.
Therefore Cameron’s sin on this occasion is not so much his decision to disagree but the method and the language he has employed. Like Blair in 1997 he has been unfair with his take on this issue. The care situation for some is miserable. There are no easy answers – there should be no easy condemnations. The ensuing row means the debate will be more immature than it would have been, as we move towards the election.
Perhaps more importantly it also closes off the options available to a Conservative government when and if it is elected. I would argue that means there is a risk that the the status quo complete with postcode lotteries, forced house sales and in some cases complete misery in people’s twilight years is more likely to continue. That is bad news for everyone.
