Thursday 18 May 2017

The "Really – there’s still three weeks until polling day?**" election - day 31


On the road with a new backdrop


This morning's manifesto launch took place in a converted factory (not converted very much, by the looks of the wider shots that saw beyond the backdrop) in Halifax.

Theresa May and a less #StrongAndStable™ backdrop than she thought she'd ordered.

Later she tipped up at a guided missile factory at Lostock, near Bolton.  An audience of MBDA workers might be expected to give a prime minister a warm welcome, as she's maintaining good relations with Saudi Arabia, one of their larger clients.  As the Campaign Against Arms Trade tell us:

"MBDA's missile sales to Saudi Arabia include approximately 350 Storm Shadow cruise missiles (manufactured at Stevenage), 1,000 Brimstone air-to-surface missiles (manufactured at Lostock, Henlow and Stevenage), 2,000 Mistral portable surface-to-air missiles and 100 Milan anti-tank missiles."

****

The manifesto is packaged as a serious, austere document for a #StrongAndStable™ message.  Tom Newton Dunn of the Sun thinks it's written for Sun readers and indeed many of the messages are pitched at that group.  It might not be written in a style that Sun readers would expect to read, but I'm sure Newton Dunn will do any necessary translation.


#MrsME has dumped a lot of the Cameron baggage she told us she was supporting two years ago.  At the launch she told a questioner "There is no Mayism" but readers of the Foreword, let alone the whole document, might question that.  The document lays out "...the kind of place I want this country to be...".  No Mayism there?

Some suggested that she has adopted the style of European Christian Democrats, others that she has swallowed UKIP policy or Labour policy.  I came in half way through Daily Politics to hear talk of The Conservative Empire.  She is definitely stamping a new style on things.

And it's important.  She says so herself.

Our future prosperity, our place in the world, our standard of living, and the opportunities we want for our children – and our children’s children – all depend on getting the next five years right. If we fail, the consequences for Britain and for the economic security of ordinary, working people across this country will be significant. If we succeed, the opportunities ahead of us are great.

At the launch that last word was replaced with "dire".



Attacking the old, who vote



After the 2010 election, during which inter-party talks on social care came to an end and the Conservatives dubbed a levy on estates being discussed within the Labour party the "Death Tax" the issue was still sensitive and the new coalition government asked Andrew Dilnot to investigate the care system and make recommendations.  His commission reported in 2011 to some acclaim, and we waited.

In 2014 the coalition put the Care Act through parliament with some support from all sides.  Section 15, "Cap on care costs" stated that "A local authority may not make a charge... for meeting an adult’s needs... if the total of the costs accrued in meeting the adult’s eligible needs after the commencement of this section exceeds the cap on care costs."  Note that word "commencement".  This became law but none of it would happen until a regulation was passed, defining dates and actual numbers.  And there we waited.

The Conservative's 2015 manifesto declared:

"We will cap charges for residential social care from April 2016 and also allow deferred payment agreements, so no one has to sell their home.  For the first time, individual liabilities will be limited, giving everyone the peace of  mind that they will receive the care they need, and that they will be protected from unlimited costs if  they develop very serious care needs – such as dementia.  We will protect the NHS budget and we will prioritise funding for dementia research."


In the August of that year, after the Conservative victory that people tell us was unexpected even by David Cameron, a letter arrived with Izzi Seccombe, chair of the Local Government Association (who had expressed concern about councils' ability handle the system), saying "A time of consolidation is not the right moment to be implementing expensive new commitments such as this...  I can therefore confirm that... we have taken the difficult decision to delay the introduction of the cap on care costs system and that this will now be introduced from April 2020."


Today's manifesto seems to drop the commitment to a cap which is sitting in law waiting to be "commenced".  Instead the rules would be made the same whether a person is being cared for in their own home or in a residential home.  The cost of this care would be the responsibility of the person receiving care while they hold assets (including their own home) worth more than £100,000, called the "capital floor".

This would be "more than four times the current means test threshold" of £23,250 and would ensure that "no matter how large the cost of care turns out to be, people will always retain at least £100,000 of their savings and assets, including value in the family home".  So that's all right then.

Andrew Dilnot didn't think so.





The principles he had proposed, of a cap to limit the amount anyone would have to pay and progress towards an element of social insurance to spread the load, would now be dead and buried.  The claimed advantage of a capital floor four times as big as what applies now wasn't appreciated by many, and the proposal will now probably run with the label "Dementia tax".





Anyone living for a long time with dementia and requiring care would now be liable to spend the value of their assets down to £100,000, while someone who lives just as long with no ailments to speak of would retain all their assets.  As the Spectator article says, "This is effectively a massive inheritance tax – but only on those who are ill in old age and need to be looked after.  People are calling it a ‘dementia tax’ on Twitter, which I suspect will catch on".

There's one more issue which may or may not be significant.  This system would depend, as the current one does, on deferred payment agreements, which are arrangements with a local council that the cost of care that the council pays will be retrieved from the person's estate after death.

This presumably involves commitment of current money with a deferred repayment, effectively lending against the eventual value of the care recipient's assets.  If such agreements would now be available to a larger group of people, what impact would there be on the finances of a council with more money committed and potentially more people employed to manage valuations and the accumulating cost of care?

This one will run and run.  As Andy Burnham, Labour's Health Secretary in 2010 observed, "When I suggested something similar (but fairer and better), this paper called it a 'death tax'".








Snippets

The Prime Minister, whoever it might be, is scheduled to attend a European Council on 22 June.  By that time the Council of 27 will have confirmed its negotiating mandate to Michel Barnier and negotiations will be beginning.

Do any of the manifestos tell us enough about how that might get under way?


This sentence from today's manifesto would be a pretty definite starting point.


"As we leave the European Union, we will no longer be members of the single market or customs union but we will seek a deep and special partnership including a comprehensive free trade and customs agreement."

Costings - actual numbers - and specific pledges on tax are conspicuous by their absence from the Conservative manifesto, but such things are only relevant for a party which has successfully been labelled "not credible".

The BBC's Norman Smith keeps muttering that the Conservative plans are "un-Tory".

We were warned today that the Brexit negotiations, indeed the next five years, would be tough in Theresa May's estimation.





**  Thanks to Claire Phipps of the Guardian for the title and to Keith Jarrett's Köln Concert for keeping me sane while I pulled this together.
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