Warped views on social care

You have to feel sorry for the poor bloke - or perhaps you don't.

Sir Merrick is the Tory chairman of the Local Government Association and has written a letter to the leaders of all three main political parties about the dire problem of funding care services for the elderly.

A commission chaired by economist Andrew Dilnot has recommended that the state should pick up the cost of care for individuals over and above a raised limit of £35,000.

It will cost the state about £2 billion but the coalition hasn't said who's going to pick up the bill and looks like leaving it to local authorities.

But this opens a can of worms.

For a kick-off, it positions the financing of care below that £35,000 level fairly and squarely on the individual and will force people into ludicrously expensive private insurance schemes to provide for possible problems later in life.

How many working people do you know with £35,000 of savings available to fund care?

Campaign group United for All Ages spokesman Stephen Burke has warned against the benefits the proposal gives to richer people.

"Under the commission's regressive proposals the winners would be richer families whose inheritance will be relatively protected, while most families will face a more confusing and potentially costly care system," he warned.

There are dozens of other problems relating to means testing and the existing postcode lottery in care provision, but we should perhaps leave them for another day. There certainly isn't the space here.

But what must be said is that this is simply another recipe for private funding of care up to the £35,000 limit.

It purports to help people keep more of their assets but in fact does the reverse - it perpetuates the principle of people paying for their own social care and just tinkers with the limits of means testing.

The clear and sensible NHS-based principle of care free at the point of need is not given a look-in.

Suffice it to say that both Tory and - unfortunately - Labour politicians welcomed the Dilnot proposals.

But back to poor old Sir Merrick. In addition to being the LGA chairman, he is leader of Kensington and Chelsea council and has held a seat on the Conservative Party Board since 2008.

That's the Conservative Party which, via local authority spending cuts, is cutting back on funding for local amenities such as parks, libraries, leisure centres, roads and public toilets. We have seen campaigns across the country defending all these over the last few years.

And what does the confused Sir M say?

"It (lack of action on funding the Dilnot proposals) will increasingly limit the availability of valuable local discretionary services as resources are drawn away to plug the gap in care funding."

So he's pleading for more funds for local authorities while wearing one hat and supporting a government that's brutally hacking them back while wearing his other titfer.

Not a lot of sense there.

The thing that is leading both Tories and Labour parties into such contradictory positions is the absolute fixation on defending private wealth and refusing to see that heavily raked taxation and full public provision is, in the end, the only scheme that isn't so contradiction-ridden as to be ludicrous.

Isn't it time they grew up and faced facts?