Revolt Brewing Against Johnson On Social Care

A tax hike breaks a few promises, but Britain has pretended it can have Scandinavian levels of public services and American levels of tax for far too long – we have to make compromises to look after everyone

- Sean O'Grady

LONDON

Maybe this is a good moment to remind ourselves about some things that the Conservatives said in their 2019 election manifesto. This first one has become especially familiar in recent days: “We promise not to raise the rates of income tax, National Insurance or VAT. This is a tax guarantee that will protect the incomes of hard-working families across the next Parliament.”

Another pertinent passage is less often quoted, being the important supplement to Boris Johnson’s pledge two years ago in Downing Street to fix the system of social care for good. The manifesto wording is thus worth recalling:

“Because this is a long-term problem that will affect so many people, any solution has to be able to survive long-term. We must build the same level of consensus on social care as we have already built on the NHS.

“So we will build a cross-party consensus to bring forward an answer that solves the problem, commands the widest possible support, and stands the test of time. That consensus will consider a range of options but one condition we do make is that nobody needing care should be forced to sell their home to pay for it.”

As things stand, Johnson is set to inflict multiple fractures on both of those sets of promises, and his own already-frayed repetition for political consistency. So far from the cross-party consensus on social care the Conservatives proposed, Johnson hasn’t even got a consensus within his own party.