The Government will no longer be implementing the “Dilnot proposals” in October this year. They can’t afford it. Under plans made by the previous Government, from October no one should have been asked to spend more than £86,000 during their lifetime on social care costs. After that point their bills would have been paid by their Local Councils. This was a deliberate commitment but no financial provision was made for it. Its cancellation has not therefore come as a surprise. Instead we are getting yet another “independent commission” to make “recommendations”. Its report is scheduled for 2028.
The sentence “Democracy is better that Dictatorship” tends to get almost universal agreement – at least within the democracies themselves. If you find someone who disagrees (and are freely able to speak) then they are likely to be a Russian oligarch, a resident of Dubai or a proud citizen of Singapore. Yet, even Democracy has its limitations. In the UK, for example, we have something called the “Triple Lock”. This guarantees that State Pensions will rise each year by the rise in inflation, or by the rise in wages or by 3% – whichever is the highest. This guarantees that pensioners will gradually get better off than subsequent generations. It was affordable only in the economic conditions of ten years ago when the western democracies were growing strongly. They are flatlining now. Britain cannot afford to maintain the Triple Lock pledge. However, no Party in Britain is ever going to win an election by promising to remove it.
It is also a feature of the Democracies that one is regarded as having said something outrageous simply for stating the blindingly obvious. “How are we going to care for the elderly ?” is a perfectly fair and acceptable question, but “So why do some MPs still think that the Government, rather than the elderly people themselves, must decide the timing of their death ?” has people shaking their heads in horror. Giving people such a choice would be the end of British society as we know it. Millions of elderly would be persuaded to end their lives by greedy offspring wanting to get their hands on the inheritance. And so on.
And at the same time, Parliament is deciding that however long they live for, the elderly will have to pay for it themselves.
