Stop treating social care as a game and show us your ‘plan’ Prime Minister – The Yorkshire Post says

MANY PEOPLE will have been shocked by the tone of Boris Johnson’s response after he was asked about the status of the social care reform plan that he outlined nearly two years ago on the very day that he became Prime Minister in July 2019.

“Yes is the answer,” declared Mr Johnson before declaring, rather theatrically, at Prime Minister’s Question that Labour did not act when it was in power for 13 years and that the Opposition should, in fact, be helping the Government to develop its unspecified reforms.

Not only did the Tory leader leave the country none the wiser about the existence of his own proposals, but he risked demeaning an issue that, in every respect, should be defining his administration – namely the provision of affordable care for the elderly and most vulnerable so they can live with dignity.

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No one disputes the issue’s complexity. Just as Labour did not act between 1997 and 2010, the Tory party have been unable to advance care reform since it was returned to office 11 years ago and the Alzheimer’s Society is the latest organisation to reveal how this inaction and impasse has been compounded by Covid.

Boris Johnson was asked about social care at Prime Minister's Questions.Boris Johnson was asked about social care at Prime Minister's Questions.
Boris Johnson was asked about social care at Prime Minister's Questions.

Yet a cross-party consensus, if that is Mr Johnson’s intention, demands trust and The Yorkshire Post has it on very good authority that Ministers have made no overtures of Labour to begin to discuss how to advance reforms. And until the PM releases his plan, and allows it to form the basis of a serious debate, it is the most vulnerable members of society who will the suffer the greatest through this care lottery.

Prime Minister, is this really what you want to happen on your watch?

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