Adult social care

Today

James Heale

Burnham delays social care reform this parliament

The Labour Party conference gets underway in Liverpool today, with Andy Burnham giving his big sit-down interview to Laura Kuenssberg of the BBC. The key exchange focused on social care: a topic about which the Prime Minister has spoken constantly in recent weeks. His father, Roy, died a fortnight ago, suffering from Alzheimer’s, and Burnham spoke with feeling about his own family’s personal struggles with care. His criticisms of the existing system will strike a chord with many. ‘Social cost in England is as unfair as healthcare cost in America,’ he said. ‘There is a cost, people are paying care charges now.’ The Prime Minister seems to have a clear sense of what he believes is the promised land Few would defend the existing system as either functional or fair.

Tuesday

Oscar Edmondson

Are Labour ‘pandering’ to Nigel Farage?

14 min listen

Keir Starmer has succeeded in keeping immigration at the top of the news agenda for another day – although he may not be happy with the headlines. After his set-piece announcement yesterday, the Prime Minister is caught between fire from both sides. On the left, he is accused of ‘pandering' to Nigel Farage and even echoing the rhetoric of Enoch Powell’s ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech – with regard to Starmer's statement about Britain becoming an ‘island of strangers’. Meanwhile, Farage has called the Prime Minister ‘insincere’ and ‘playing catch-up’. Within Labour, some backbench MPs have broken ranks. But it is the quiet, soft-left faction – already uneasy about winter fuel, foreign aid etc. – that will concern the PM most.

Wednesday

Isabel Hardman

What the Budget is missing

If Daniel Defoe had been writing about modern budgets, he would have adapted his famous saying to include the certainty of death, taxes and an absence of a long-term plan for adult social care. Once again, the statement from the Chancellor had a yawning gap where the settlement for funding the beleaguered sector should be. There was no mention of social care in Rishi Sunak's speech or in the Budget Red Book, either. The government's answer to complaints about this is that ministers will publish a white paper on social care reform — but we've been hearing this line for years now. There was no mention of social care in Rishi Sunak's speech or in the Budget Red Book Indeed, we might be hearing this line for longer than we're being led to believe currently.