Social care storm offers Tories a reality check – Bernard Ingham

This is a most difficult issue both politically and emotively.

No one wants to see the elderly who have done their bit for the country living dangerously on their own in their final years.

Nor, in an ideal world, do we want to see their legacy to their family reduced to pay for their care by being forced to sell their homes.

But the taxpayer is entitled to expect every able-bodied person to save towards the costs of their care in old age and relatives cannot reasonably require the state – i.e. the taxpayer – to pick up the tab at no cost to themselves.

For these reasons we should welcome the proposed increase in National Insurance contributions along with a 
cap on an individual’s contribution to care.

It is a reasonable attempt to achieve a fair balance.

The increase in NI contribution may break the Government’s 2019 manifesto pledge to hold them down.

But that pledge was given before anybody had heard of Covid-19.

And Covid has already cost £400bn before we take into account booster jabs.

Moreover, the Government is spending £300bn more than it is raising in tax. House-wifely economics tells you it can’t go on.

Hence the overriding need for the Government to bang home the necessity for realism in our expectations and what the nation can reasonably deliver.

It is a message too few people – and not least Tory MPs – have yet to get.

Nothing has frustrated me more recently than the endless demands on an empty public purse with a hole in it to boot.

Of course we need public investment in many areas of our society.

The social care problem is matched at the other end of the age scale.

Leave aside the effects of Covid, no one can argue that the education system is in good nick any more than we can admire the teachers’ unions – as distinct from individual teachers – for their dedication to improving it.

Children are the future of our nation and we need to raise standards, 
whatever recent teacher-marked grades suggest.

Then there is the NHS which has been handed an extra £5.4bn to cope with winter pressures and Covid.

It may have served us well in combating the pandemic from scratch.

Indeed, it has been awarded the George Medal for its overall dedication.

But it has been at the expense of other, often fatal, conditions.

The waiting list for investigation and treatment runs into millions.

The shortage of doctors is becoming dangerously chronic and seeing a GP for a face-to-face consultation is often reported to be a lottery.

This cannot continue without damage to the nation’s health and economic performance.

Immigration, combined with a housing shortage, was bad enough before the Afghan crisis.

We seem to be unable to stem the 
flow across the Channel from France whatever we pay them to stop it. Why 
am I not surprised? The French have a vested financial interest in passing them on.

On top of this we have a serious problem of law and order, especially knife crime, and serious questions about police priorities in pandering to the politically correct and apparently more concerned about “hate crime” than real villains.

At last, we are beginning to learn some of the headaches that Scottish independence would cause, not least to defence, with reports that the nuclear deterrent might have to be moved abroad from Faslane. Heaven help us.

All this at a time when the Western alliance is looking very weak, with more daft talk about a European army instead of strengthening NATO as the USA abandons the role of policeman to the world.

Meanwhile, expansionist China and Russia seek to extend their sway with the West weak in both resolve and strength of arms.

All this, it will be argued, requires urgent investment of public money.

Certainly, many of the problems will not be solved without more cash.

But that money is not there and the more we print it the weaker financially we become with a rise in inflation and interest rates that pile up more debt.

In the face of all this we, as taxpayers, are entitled to know the Government’s strategy and priorities in handling it.

But don’t let us kid ourselves money is everything.

We need urgently to question organisation and motivation. Let’s stop moaning and roll up our sleeves. There’s a big repair job to be done.

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