12 Daily Express Wednesday, August 7, 2019
DX1STTWO BLONDS: Boris Johnson met Dame Barbara Windsor on the set of EastEnders 10 years agoPeople’s PM must
show he is serious
about social care
One Canada Square, London E14 5AP
Tel: 020 8612 7000 (outside UK: +44 20 8612 7000)We must stand up to the
Brussels bureaucrats
Smart move on scams
I
F the European Union had a history of
respecting democracy or even had
structures which made it properly
accountable to the people it serves, then
the past three years of Brexit negotiations
would have probably been very different.
But we know that when it comes to
ordinary people expressing their anger at
the arrogance of the Brussels elite, then this
has always been met with a refusal to
accept the result. Just ask the people of
France, Denmark, Ireland and Holland.
Their referendum results were all reversed.
So Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – the
two men who led the successful Vote Leave
campaign in 2016 – are right to lay it on
the line to the EU.
If they want a deal with Britain and want
to keep a successful trading, defence and
political relationship going, then they have
to be willing to renegotiate. The truth is that
Theresa May’s compromise is dead and if
the talks are not reopened properly, then
the only solution can be no deal.
The wine producers of France, car makers
in Germany, the tourist industry in Spain,
the whole Irish economy and many other
sectors must now hope that the EU can
finally show the willingness to compromise
properly.
The time for acting reasonably with the
unreasonable is over so the new Prime
Minister and his Government only now
need to stand firm and ensure that the
democratic will of the British people is
enacted.
It is up to the EU to decide whether that
can be with a deal or no deal.L
AUNCHING ScamSmart is a very
welcome move by the Financial
Conduct Authority and Pensions
Regulator. It is clear that scammers
now see pensioners as a soft target and an
easy way of pocketing ill-gotten gains.
Writing in today’s Daily Express,
pensions minister Guy Opperman is correct
to point out that people who fall victim to
such scams are not to blame but the
responsibility is the fault of the criminals
who run them.
Much more needs to be done to protect
our pensioners and there also has to be a
greater determination to pursue those
responsible for ripping them off.Lady luck buys freedom
S
OMETIMES lady luck brings more
than money for a winner. This is
particularly true for Dean Weymes,
who hit the jackpot in the National
Lottery’s Set For Life draw and will receive
£10,000 each month for 30 years.
It has brought him the opportunity and
freedom to follow his dreams. For he does
not just want to sit back and enjoy the
money. He intends to fulfil his ambition and
talent as a scriptwriter, and help his family.‘He must assuage our fears of
being abandoned in our old age’
Tim Newark
Political commentator
T
WO blonds met in a
boozer, Boris Johnson
and Babs Windsor at
the Queen Vic pub
when he was London
mayor. And now he is
Prime Minister he should
certainly back Dame Barbara’s
demand for fairer treatment for
people suffering from dementia
and their carers. It is his great
opportunity to show he is truly
a People’s PM, listening to our
national concerns.
In a heartfelt plea in an open
letter to the PM, the 82-year-
old film and TV icon laid out
the terrible cost to families as
their loved ones succumb to
the ageing disease. Diagnosed
herself with Alzheimer’s, she
knows the pressure it puts on
relationships.
About 850,000 people in
the UK are affected by
dementia and yet, if that was
not bad enough, their relatives
then frequently have to face
the agonising decision of sell-
ing the family home to pay
for the costs of much needed
social care.
The threshold at which suffer-
ers don’t have to pay for care
has been set scandalously low
at just £23,250 in assets and yet
they may face up to £100,000 a
year in care costs. In just the
past two years, the families of
those with dementia have had
to fork out nearly £15billion
in fees, exhausting a lifetime’s
savings and selling their
homes, with the Government
contributing only £9.3 billion.O
F COURSE, the
Government has many
demands on taxpay-
ers’ money but we live in an
ageing world and this is the new
reality that has to be faced by
all of us. We will all know some-
one who suffers from dementia.
It’s not fair to ask us to contrib-
ute to taxes throughout our
lifetime only to abandon us
when we get old. We have
expectations from the NHS and
we should have a similar safety
net with social care.
So far Conservative politi-
cians have foisted the responsi-bility of that cost on to local
government in a cack-handed
attempt to link it to the finan-
cial efficiency of councils. They
presume that Labour councils
will have to curb their spend-
thrift ways to meet the bill or
be voted out of power. But it
doesn’t really work that way
and councils of all political
colours have had to squeeze
spending on other vital services
or soak local shopkeepers.
This week, while having my
hair cut, my barber explained
he had to pay £30,000 in rent
for his council-owned property
and a further £8,400 in busi-
ness rates “and they don’t even
empty my bins”. That’s a lot of
haircuts and the council justifies
this by saying it needs to meet
the ever rising costs of local
social care.
Someone has to pay for this
it is true. But you judge the
success of a society by the way
it looks after its older citizens.Those who have worked a life-
time, paid their taxes, brought
up families, deserve to be
treated with respect in their
twilight years.
Theresa May got it wrong
when she told us we just had to
cough up and sell our homes
to pay the bills. This so-called
dementia tax nearly lost her
the 2017 general election. Of
course we have to pay for it
in the end but it should come
out of general taxation and
be spread across a lifetime of
income tax.
We are all used to paying for
public services we don’t neces-
sary use, such as state schooling
or unemployment benefit, but
that is the mark of a civilised
nation. We all look out for
each other.
This is how Boris Johnson can
differentiate himself from his
predecessor. Already he has
demonstrated he has got the
message from Leave voters thatfeel left behind by putting
money back into their regions,
whether it’s on updating hospi-
tals or investing in infrastruc-
ture. He must maintain this
momentum by now assuaging
our fears about being aban-
doned in old age. By reaching
out to the vulnerable, he can
re-shape the Conservatives into
a party for all the people.H
IS argument for Brexit
is that a leaner,
more entrepreneurial
Britain will generate higher
levels of prosperity but this
money must be seen to benefit
everyone across the country.
By doing that he will show
that capitalism is the best way
to look after society and put
an end to the false promises
of Labour Marxists whose
socialism only makes countries
poorer not richer.
That way he can deliver on
the pleas of the fun-loving
blonde he met on the East-
Enders set 10 years ago and
truly be the People’s PM.
Babs is now one of the
hundreds of thousands of
people fighting dementia who
need his help and he should
meet her challenge by reform-
ing the way we fund social care
sooner rather than later.Picture: BBC / PAРЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS