10 Thursday November 25 2021 | the times
News
Boris Johnson was forced to defend
changes to social care after he was ac-
cused of introducing a “working-class
dementia tax” during heated ex-
changes in the Commons yesterday.
Sir Keir Starmer said the prime min-
ister had “picked the pockets of working
people” in a change to his social care
policy that will mean more poorer, old-
er people will have to pay up to £86,
for their care.
Johnson refused three times to re-
peat a promise from the 2019 Conserva-
tive manifesto that no one would have
to sell their home to pay for social care.
He insisted that the government was
fixing a problem ignored for 70 years.
This week 19 Tory MPs rebelled
against changes that would disregard
means-tested government contribu-
tions in calculating when people reach
the new cap on care costs, promised in
September. The change affects only
those with assets below £186,000,
meaning that some people will have to
spend up to 80 per cent of their assets
on their care, up from about 50 per cent
under the previous plans.
At prime minister’s questions, Star-
mer accused Johnson of unfairness.
“Under his plan, someone with assets
worth about £100,000 will lose almost
everything,” he said. “Yet somebody
with assets of about £1 million will keep
almost everything.”
He likened the policy to Theresa
May’s disastrous 2017 manifesto policy
on social care, dubbed a “dementia tax”,
Boris Johnson welcomed to No 10 Lissie Harper, the widow of PC Andrew Harper.
life sentences for those who kill emergency service workers. Inset: Rishi SunakNews Politics
Johnson accused of introducing
Chris Smyth Whitehall Editor that would have included the value of a
person’s house in a means test for care
at home.
“It’s just like their 2017 manifesto all
over again,” Starmer said. “Only this
time something has changed.
“He’s picked the pockets of working
people to protect the estates of the
wealthiest. How could he possibly have
managed to devise a working-class
dementia tax?”
Johnson dismissed the criticism.
“This does more for working people up
and down the country than Labour ever
did because we’re actually solving the
problem that they failed to address,” he
said. “It’s something left over from the
Attlee government and we are fixing it.”
He said that the policy would disre-
gard “your housing asset altogether
while you’re in it”. It is unclear, how-
ever, how this is different from the cur-
rent means test, which includes the
home only if neither the person need-
ing care nor their partner is living in it.
The government’s plan includes a
more generous means test — those
with assets of less than £100,
getting government help, up from
£23,250.
Johnson accused Starmer of being
“befuddled” about the policy. “By put-
ting the huge investment that we are
making now in health and social care,
we are allowing for the first time the
people of this country to insure them-
selves against the potentially catastro-
phic, otherwise catastrophic, cost of
dementia or Alzheimer’s,” he said.
Starmer replied: “It’s a classic con
game. A Covent Garden pickpocketing
operation. The prime minister is the
frontman, distracting people with wild
promises and panto speeches whilst
his chancellor dips his hand in their
pocket.”
Johnson sought to defend the plan by
saying that people “can have a deferred
payments agreement if you move out
and are living in residential care”.
Such schemes allow the sale of
homes to be put off until after someone
has died, with care payments coming
out of the estate.
He insisted that not only would the
care cap directly benefit people with
conditions such as dementia but argued
that by giving certainty about costs “we
are taking away the anxiety from mil-
lions of people... about their homes”.
Johnson accused Labour of opposing
improvements to social care, pointing
out that the party had supported a less
generous £100,000 care costs cap.
Jeremy Hunt, the former health sec-
retary, described the government’s
social care policy as “three steps for-
ward, two steps back”. He said that it
was “much less progressive than the
original [Sir Andrew] Dilnot plans”.
Hunt argued that “the real issue in
social care is not the cap but inadequate
funding for local authorities and a
workforce crisis”, pointing to estimates
that staffing needed to rise by 55 per
cent over the next decade.
The chancellor’s tax moves have cost
him credibility, Iain Martin, page 35
Johnson’s chaotic style of leadership,
letters to the editor, page 36Quentin Letts
Boris looks chipper for
a man on his last legs
T
he Westminster village
narrative of recent days
has been insistent: Boris
Johnson is past it, finito, a
lump of green-tinged
bacon ready to be chopped and put
out for the blackbirds. Politically
he is little more than a tooth kept
in place by a few last strands of
bleeding gum. So says the near-
unanimous narrative. “Has he
considered calling it a day before
he’s pushed out of the door?”
inquired the Scots Nats’ Ian
Blackford with nicely artificial
concern at PMQs. Blackford’s
chubby fingers were poised
daintily.
As he asked the question he
almost fluttered his eyelashes.
Labour’s Sir Keir Starmer was
similarly solicitous of the prime
minister’s wellbeing. “Is everything
OK, prime minister?” asked the
nasal knight with leaden sarcasm.
We swivelled our gaze to the
government bench, expecting to
find Johnson in a heap of
hopelessness, discarded cognac-
bottle corks and perhaps even a
puddle of regretful tears. Actually,
he seemed annoyingly chipper.
Listening to Blackford’s falseconcern, he started doing that
Muttley wheeze thing when his
shoulders rise and fall. Blackford
went on to comment that the PM
was spending his time “hunting for
chatty pigs” (this was a conflation of
the Peppa Pig sensation and the
rumour of a new Downing Street
mole, which is obviously not a pig at
all). Johnson laughed and pointed at
Blackford, suggesting that the Scots
Nat supremo himself might be a
fairly chatty sort of piglet.
Our spent force of a premier had
been similarly upbeat when he
arrived at the swing doors behind
the Speaker’s chair shortly before
PMQs. He does look a little heavier
— he has regained a fair amount of
the timber he shed after his
coronavirus bout last year — and
the hair is dreadful at the moment.
But in terms of bustle and bounce he
seemed fine. Butcher’s dog and all
that, if we can mix the animal
analogies further.
Before PMQs began there was a
brief statement from the Speaker,
initially about the sign language
interpreters’ service being available.
Inexplicably this attracted heckles
from the direction of Labour’s Toby
Perkins (Chesterfield). Speaker
Hoyle dealt with that immediately.
He is in no mood for cheek at
present and gives the slightest hint
of impertinence a brisk slap with his
12in ruler.
The Speaker added that, following
Tuesday’s requiem Mass for SirDavid Amess, he hoped MPs would
behave with “kindness and
decency in our proceedings today”.
Did this work? Amazingly, up to a
point, it did. There was less of last
week’s acidity. Starmer may have
accused Johnson of dodging
questions about old people’s homes
and Johnson may have accused
Starmer of having a “befuddled
mind”, but both were done with a
certain levity. Starmer cheered his
side by noting that the Tory
benches were fuller than
last Wednesday — “I see
they’ve turned up this
week” — and Johnson got
his lot cheering by accusing
the Labour leader of being a
hypocrite on HS2, which he
claims to support but
personally opposed it.
“Who knows if he’ll be
here at the next election,”
said Starmer, falling back on
that Westminster narrative.
Johnson mouthed that
Starmer was a “wally” and
rubbed one cheek in a
village idiot expression.
Angela Rayner quite enjoyed
that. Beside Johnson sat
Rishi Sunak, moving very
little. After one of Johnson’s
sallies several ministers
cheered. It was hard to say if
the chancellor joined them
because he was wearing a
mask. In more ways than
one?
All this was watched from
the gallery by the moderator
of the Church of Scotland,
whose “sage words” in a
sermon earlier were praised
by the uncharacteristically angelic
Blackford. The moderator is Lord
Wallace of Tankerness, a former
Lib Dem MP and chief whip. Now
there’s an unusual career arc. If
things do go phutt for Boris
perhaps he can enter the church.Political Sketch
elic