The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I have never understood the logic behind elderly people scrimping in retirement in order to leave a legacy to their children who in most cases don’t need it and don’t want it. If you have the funds to help your children or grandchildren to e.g. get on the property ladder, why not gift it to them now, rather than wait until you are dead, and risk it being spent on a care home. Enjoy your retirement, and spend it on yourself or maybe spend it on things that will help you remain in your own home instead of going into care? Sorry kids!
I think some of it is a psychological “legacy” thing. This idea that no matter what I passed something down and people made something with it. Perhaps some people don’t like the idea of gifting because they’d actually rather not really know what it’ll be spent on.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
In Scotland we have a system where your house pays for your care, that is if you move into a care home permanently, the value of your house is usually included in the financial assessment after a 12-week disregard period. If the house is sold, the proceeds are used to pay for your care home fees, with any money left over after costs going to your estate for inheritance, unless certain relatives are still living in the property. What's the disincentive to someone scrapping their assets to get free care? Simple - council care homes are worse than hell.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I have never understood the logic behind elderly people scrimping in retirement in order to leave a legacy to their children who in most cases don’t need it and don’t want it. If you have the funds to help your children or grandchildren to e.g. get on the property ladder, why not gift it to them now, rather than wait until you are dead, and risk it being spent on a care home. Enjoy your retirement, and spend it on yourself or maybe spend it on things that will help you remain in your own home instead of going into care? Sorry kids!
What everyone who makes such a decision has to understand is what happens when you have no savings (bar ≈ £23K) and you need social care and you apply to the council.
If you need a care home you will be put in one that the council chooses and not one you choose. You might be given a list of two or three but here's the rub: they will be the cheapest ones in a set geographical area. What you get offered will vary enormously depending on area and indeed just luck.
Care homes often cannot provide adequate care on the fees that councils are prepared to pay.
If you want choice and a better care home you have to get family to top up the fees.
If you need care in your own home and have run down your savings - the council will send in the cheapest agency they can find that has capacity. They will offer it out to contract to those agencies that will work for say £22 or £23 an hour when most want £30 or more.
Take a wild guess what some at least of those agencies that will work for a lot less than others are like.
Some councils may have an in-house service. You will get that.
These are the agencies that in many cases send people rushing in with only 15mins to get you on the toilet, have a basic wash, take meds and do a cup of tea or whatever.
If you want to have choice and power over where you spend the last two years or so of your life then be prepared to set aside your savings if you have them and forget inheritance.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I get that and that is undoubtedly a risk at the margins. But how many people are really willing to risk an old age in a grubby, poorly maintained and very poorly staffed local authority care home so their kids can buy their homes on the property ladder? I suggest very few. Some money will escape, no question, but I still think it would catch a hell of a lot of money that is needed to fund care and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
In Scotland we have a system where your house pays for your care, that is if you move into a care home permanently, the value of your house is usually included in the financial assessment after a 12-week disregard period. If the house is sold, the proceeds are used to pay for your care home fees, with any money left over after costs going to your estate for inheritance, unless certain relatives are still living in the property. What's the disincentive to someone scrapping their assets to get free care? Simple - council care homes are worse than hell.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
I don't think calling them terrorists is wrong; at least, some of them.
But officially classifying them as terrorists is, I suspect, politically naive to a massive degree. Unless there is information that has not been released (quite possible) then it is another example of this government shooting itself in the foot.
Prediction: Reform will win the next General election and Farage will be PM. Not because I want it but the left liberal kumbaya types continue to bury their heads in sand in complete denial of the absurdity that our asylum system has become. The more they refuse to listen to ordinary people with ordinary legitimate concerns, the more they try to stigmatise protest and generalise protestors as right wing racist xenophobes, the more they will do Reform's work for them as the only party prepared to listen...
What's happened to Tahrir Ali, former Deputy Leader of the Greens. Has he been on a journey?
Ten years ago he was issuing thunderous denunciations of Israel in almost Islamist terms, and launching blanket attacks on the proposal for the Govt to adopt the accepted international definition of Antisemitism.
Now he talks about very different things in the rest of that tweet.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
A couple of ways the British collective psyche really doesn't help here.
One is our obsession with inheritance- at some point, it flips from human and healthy into something more pathological; a last breath of power from beyond the grave. The other is our general dislike of the idea of paying enough tax to cover the cost of the things we want the state to deliver.
The other difficulty (as I understand it, others may know better) is that the costs of elderly care are very very lumpy. For some, it's not very much at all, whereas for others it would wipe out people wealthier than me. Spreading that risk seems fair enough- whether we do that by individual insurance or just by rolling it into what the state does, paid for by tax.
Part of the pathology of IHT may be its unfamiliarity - only 5% or so of estates pay* yet enormous fear is whipped up over it. Perhaps also projection - how people obsess about celebs, and celebs have to pay ... or for that matter, for all I know, aristos on telly programmes about upstairs and downstairs. I was really struck by Flatlander's remarks earlier about his mother being unhappy about days out at NT big houses because the poor aristos had had to give them up with IHT, one assumes thanks to Lloyd George and death duties etc. (for all that the true story is much more complex, and the aristos often did much better out of the NT than that, as the ensuing discussion showed ). Very revealing. Yet that was how they got the first OAPs under LG. There's the Para Handy story of that time, of an old woman having to beg a buckshee lift on the Vital Spark to go to ther workhouse - no family, couldn't cope any more, too poor - till the crew realise she hadn't heard about the new pension, and Captain Handy orders course reversed to take her back home. I don't know if it got into the film series, though.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
This is one option that puts the cost of care substantially onto those that lose the end of life lottery, who have illnesses that require lots of expensive care.
There is another option where the cost of end of life care is funded by everyone through compulsory insurance or taxes, whether they ultimately need it or not.
Either of these is better than an unmanaged ad-hoc as we have now.
Compulsory insurance is another moral hazard. Why look after your old Dad if the state will do it for free, and he's already paid for it?
Without the army of family carers out there the government would have an even bigger problem.
Pay a realistic carers allowance that fully reflects the cost to the family member providing the care, up to and including the cost of stopping work to provide full time care to a relative. At present, some people, mainly women, have to give up work at significant cost to themselves, but little cost to the government and local authority. Loss of tax revenue but balanced by a saving in the state providing a paid carer.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Is it possible the thing Putin said to Trump on Friday was "I have the Epstein Files" ?
Would explain the ashen faces
I doubt it. Trump - and the people around him - are not big people. They have important jobs, and a thirst for money and influence, but they are actually small people. And they are small people dealing with bigger people, in the midst of massive events that not only cost thousands of lives, but may reshape the world order.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I get that and that is undoubtedly a risk at the margins. But how many people are really willing to risk an old age in a grubby, poorly maintained and very poorly staffed local authority care home so their kids can buy their homes on the property ladder? I suggest very few. Some money will escape, no question, but I still think it would catch a hell of a lot of money that is needed to fund care and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.
The problem in areas like the Flatlands is that there isn't much demand for super-duper shiny care homes for people with a lot of savings.
So they all have to cater to what the council will pay - or go bust.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I have to applaud the work of the Longest Ballot Committee, who get loads of candidates registered to campaign for electoral reform - 214 candidates is splendid stuff
In this by-election, Poilievre faced a record 214 candidates, many of whom are associated with a protest group seeking electoral reform.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Paying for taxis to send SEND kids to school is insane. The parents need to take responsibility or at least means test it so that anyone not on UC has to pay themselves or take their own kids.
I have to pay extra to have my grass clippings taken away.
Squaring the Circle is a good title for this because you can't. All the solutions are either too expensive or morally unacceptable or politically toxic. So we muddle on for now and for the foreseeable future.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
A couple of ways the British collective psyche really doesn't help here.
One is our obsession with inheritance- at some point, it flips from human and healthy into something more pathological; a last breath of power from beyond the grave. The other is our general dislike of the idea of paying enough tax to cover the cost of the things we want the state to deliver.
The other difficulty (as I understand it, others may know better) is that the costs of elderly care are very very lumpy. For some, it's not very much at all, whereas for others it would wipe out people wealthier than me. Spreading that risk seems fair enough- whether we do that by individual insurance or just by rolling it into what the state does, paid for by tax.
Part of the pathology of IHT may be its unfamiliarity - only 5% or so of estates pay* yet enormous fear is whipped up over it. Perhaps also projection - how people obsess about celebs, and celebs have to pay ... or for that matter, for all I know, aristos on telly programmes about upstairs and downstairs. I was really struck by Flatlander's remarks earlier about his mother being unhappy about days out at NT big houses because the poor aristos had had to give them up with IHT, one assumes thanks to Lloyd George and death duties etc. (for all that the true story is much more complex, and the aristos often did much better out of the NT than that, as the ensuing discussion showed ). Very revealing. Yet that was how they got the first OAPs under LG. There's the Para Handy story of that time, of an old woman having to beg a buckshee lift on the Vital Spark to go to ther workhouse - no family, couldn't cope any more, too poor - till the crew realise she hadn't heard about the new pension, and Captain Handy orders course reversed to take her back home. I don't know if it got into the film series, though.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
That was one of the best Para Handy stories, and a change from high jeenks in Inverara’!
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
That’s fine and part of me thinks the mass arrests are counter productive but if it was another proscribed group then the police wouldn’t hesitate. They should be no exception because of who they are and their background.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Paying for taxis to send SEND kids to school is insane. The parents need to take responsibility or at least means test it so that anyone not on UC has to pay themselves or take their own kids.
I have to pay extra to have my grass clippings taken away.
The options are either local special schools or centralized schools with transport to and from.
That is where the costs come from
Also if you knew the cost of you actual bins (and had to pay for them? The garden recycling at £43 is a bargain
Squaring the Circle is a good title for this because you can't. All the solutions are either too expensive or morally unacceptable or politically toxic. So we muddle on for now and for the foreseeable future.
Kicking the can down the road is almost always the easiest option, and thus the most politically acceptable, and unfortunately it is managable a lot longer than we usually think it will be.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
This is one option that puts the cost of care substantially onto those that lose the end of life lottery, who have illnesses that require lots of expensive care.
There is another option where the cost of end of life care is funded by everyone through compulsory insurance or taxes, whether they ultimately need it or not.
Either of these is better than an unmanaged ad-hoc as we have now.
Compulsory insurance is another moral hazard. Why look after your old Dad if the state will do it for free, and he's already paid for it?
Without the army of family carers out there the government would have an even bigger problem.
I wouldn't be so defeatist about old age.
I have just spent the day taking my mum for a hospital appointment. She is 88, while my dad is 90. She struggles to walk more than 100 yards due to arthritis (she played tennis every week until she was 80 and it has finally caught up with her knees) while my dad can no longer drive because of his eyes. It all went well, the clinical service being excellent even if the Salisbury District Hospital is mostly portakabins, with long desolate corridors of derelict equipment. They have no external help apart me and my brothers dropping by every few weeks.
I dropped them off at their house after a pub lunch. I think there are several key factors to living well in old age.
1: good genes. The hand of cards we get at birth is critical in many ways 2: healthy eating, not much booze. 3: plenty of mental activity. My mum reads extensively, both play bridge weekly. 4: downsize to a manageable property no later than mid seventies, preferably somewhere where driving isn't critical. 5: stay married. Company is critical, both for mental stimulation, and for managing daily activities.
We should aim not at funding Social Care, but rather at avoiding it. Healthy lives, good access to timely healthcare, enough flexible working for family members in their fifties that they can help (my brothers are well aware that we will be doing much more as time goes on).
This isn't aimed at preserving our inheritance but rather at ensuring our parents enjoy life as much as possible. Social Care is sometimes the only way, but putting it off as far as possible should be our real aim.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I have never understood the logic behind elderly people scrimping in retirement in order to leave a legacy to their children who in most cases don’t need it and don’t want it. If you have the funds to help your children or grandchildren to e.g. get on the property ladder, why not gift it to them now, rather than wait until you are dead, and risk it being spent on a care home. Enjoy your retirement, and spend it on yourself or maybe spend it on things that will help you remain in your own home instead of going into care? Sorry kids!
I think some of it is a psychological “legacy” thing. This idea that no matter what I passed something down and people made something with it. Perhaps some people don’t like the idea of gifting because they’d actually rather not really know what it’ll be spent on.
It provides some agency after you're dead. Perhaps that's part of it.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Paying for taxis to send SEND kids to school is insane. The parents need to take responsibility or at least means test it so that anyone not on UC has to pay themselves or take their own kids.
I have to pay extra to have my grass clippings taken away.
There's a lot of good intentions around various duties that don't really seem manageable at the levels now being seen. The law has to change.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
This is one option that puts the cost of care substantially onto those that lose the end of life lottery, who have illnesses that require lots of expensive care.
There is another option where the cost of end of life care is funded by everyone through compulsory insurance or taxes, whether they ultimately need it or not.
Either of these is better than an unmanaged ad-hoc as we have now.
I agree that both of these are better than what we have now but, for me, the lottery idea is oversold. What we are talking about is whether someone who ends up with hundreds of thousands of care costs should be able to leave hundreds of thousands in legacy. I mean, WTF?? People who are unfortunate enough to need end of life care (typically those with dementia) on a large scale simply have to use their own resources to meet that liability. I am not saying we cannot have Dilnot type insurance but the first claim on that estate is the debts incurred in life.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
My suspicion would be that people are uninterested in what PA was up to, and care just that they are the 'right' sort of people based on their purported motivation, and thus see an attak on PA as an attack on them, simple as.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Hang on. I may be missing something, but if your statement of violent attacks on police relates to the same incident of which I am thinking, then the charges haven't come to court yet, and are only accusations so far. Sub judice and all that.
It's terrible that the EU - and particularly a handful of countries (*) have not weaned themselves off Russian O&G. But surely the figures above are not all profit to the Russian government, as there would be hefty production costs.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
A couple of ways the British collective psyche really doesn't help here.
One is our obsession with inheritance- at some point, it flips from human and healthy into something more pathological; a last breath of power from beyond the grave. The other is our general dislike of the idea of paying enough tax to cover the cost of the things we want the state to deliver.
The other difficulty (as I understand it, others may know better) is that the costs of elderly care are very very lumpy. For some, it's not very much at all, whereas for others it would wipe out people wealthier than me. Spreading that risk seems fair enough- whether we do that by individual insurance or just by rolling it into what the state does, paid for by tax.
Part of the pathology of IHT may be its unfamiliarity - only 5% or so of estates pay* yet enormous fear is whipped up over it. Perhaps also projection - how people obsess about celebs, and celebs have to pay ... or for that matter, for all I know, aristos on telly programmes about upstairs and downstairs. I was really struck by Flatlander's remarks earlier about his mother being unhappy about days out at NT big houses because the poor aristos had had to give them up with IHT, one assumes thanks to Lloyd George and death duties etc. (for all that the true story is much more complex, and the aristos often did much better out of the NT than that, as the ensuing discussion showed ). Very revealing. Yet that was how they got the first OAPs under LG. There's the Para Handy story of that time, of an old woman having to beg a buckshee lift on the Vital Spark to go to ther workhouse - no family, couldn't cope any more, too poor - till the crew realise she hadn't heard about the new pension, and Captain Handy orders course reversed to take her back home. I don't know if it got into the film series, though.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
My dad loved the Para Handy stories which filtered down to me assiduously watching the tv series (the superior Vital Spark one). Don’t remember a workhouse episode but Munro was a great social observer with a subversive streak, sounds typical of his style.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
Excellent point on the care skills and in particular dementia care.
I am sick of reading 'why can't the unemployed wipe their arses'.
If you think social care boils down to wiping bottoms then you haven't a frigging clue what you are talking about.
The number of people aged 85+ in England & Wales trebled between 1981 and 2021. I don't think you can pay for that sort of change by modifying the tax system, albeit you can absolutely make the situation better or worse. There still exists a large increase in an elderly cohort that need looking after.
Japan has staggering numbers of elderly - over 2 million 90+ by 2017. It will have 440,000 centenarians by 2050.
How is their economy gearing up to cope?
It’s not. It’s the epitome of doomloop, just with a somewhat less fractious and more stoical population.
Korea will follow next. Then Italy, Germany etc etc.
I guess we can look forward to a time when the care of the REALLY elderly is being undertaken by people over 80....
In my experience there are plenty of octogenarians caring for relatives at home.
Prediction: Reform will win the next General election and Farage will be PM. Not because I want it but the left liberal kumbaya types continue to bury their heads in sand in complete denial of the absurdity that our asylum system has become. The more they refuse to listen to ordinary people with ordinary legitimate concerns, the more they try to stigmatise protest and generalise protestors as right wing racist xenophobes, the more they will do Reform's work for them as the only party prepared to listen...
Ali is... an interesting figure. He was thrown out of the Green Party for being anti-trans. He may be right, but he's not representative of Green Party thought.
I believe he is right. This is the best warning anyone could give of what will happen if immigration isn't brought under control.
Much of the concern about immigration seems to be only somewhat loosely connected to reality, so I'm uncertain whether bringing immigration under control will actually stop the rhetoric and false beliefs.
Leaving that aside, what does it mean to talk about immigration being brought under control? Is it about total numbers? These are falling considerably. If immigration is cut to a quarter of the peak under Boris Johnson, is that "under control"? Or is it about the types of immigration? Is it about asylum seeker numbers (also down) or numbers coming over in small boats (up)?
If immigration comes down, but the cost of care goes up considerably, as per the header, is that what people want?
Despite previous immigration, births continue to struggle to rise above deaths in the UK, and with lots more older folk coming down the line, per the lead, the workers to support them (us) all have to come from somewhere. As we’ve seen with Brexit, cut off one supply of young workers and the country simply needs to find another.
The burden of care might be cut if the early signs that the shingles vaccine significantly reduces incidence of dementia are confirmed, and meanwhile all us older folk need to be working on our leg strength, which in the longer term is key to keeping us out of residential care.
There's going to be a global shortage of young people before too long. What will we do then?
Are you suggesting that the French will stop immigrants at Dover as the French economy will need them?
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
It's because they are self evidently not terrorists as that term is understood by most people. Anti terror legislation is draconian, and is accepted as a necessary infringement on our liberties as long as it is reserved for genuinely dangerous, murderous groups. If they can proscribe PA they can proscribe pretty much anyone. I don't support PA but I much more vociferously don't support them being proscribed as a terror organisation.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
A couple of ways the British collective psyche really doesn't help here.
One is our obsession with inheritance- at some point, it flips from human and healthy into something more pathological; a last breath of power from beyond the grave. The other is our general dislike of the idea of paying enough tax to cover the cost of the things we want the state to deliver.
The other difficulty (as I understand it, others may know better) is that the costs of elderly care are very very lumpy. For some, it's not very much at all, whereas for others it would wipe out people wealthier than me. Spreading that risk seems fair enough- whether we do that by individual insurance or just by rolling it into what the state does, paid for by tax.
Part of the pathology of IHT may be its unfamiliarity - only 5% or so of estates pay* yet enormous fear is whipped up over it. Perhaps also projection - how people obsess about celebs, and celebs have to pay ... or for that matter, for all I know, aristos on telly programmes about upstairs and downstairs. I was really struck by Flatlander's remarks earlier about his mother being unhappy about days out at NT big houses because the poor aristos had had to give them up with IHT, one assumes thanks to Lloyd George and death duties etc. (for all that the true story is much more complex, and the aristos often did much better out of the NT than that, as the ensuing discussion showed ). Very revealing. Yet that was how they got the first OAPs under LG. There's the Para Handy story of that time, of an old woman having to beg a buckshee lift on the Vital Spark to go to ther workhouse - no family, couldn't cope any more, too poor - till the crew realise she hadn't heard about the new pension, and Captain Handy orders course reversed to take her back home. I don't know if it got into the film series, though.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
My dad loved the Para Handy stories which filtered down to me assiduously watching the tv series (the superior Vital Spark one). Don’t remember a workhouse episode but Munro was a great social observer with a subversive streak, sounds typical of his style.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
It's because they are self evidently not terrorists as that term is understood by most people. Anti terror legislation is draconian, and is accepted as a necessary infringement on our liberties as long as it is reserved for genuinely dangerous, murderous groups. If they can proscribe PA they can proscribe pretty much anyone. I don't support PA but I much more vociferously don't support them being proscribed as a terror organisation.
This is the point made by Davey today. Sadly, under Taz’s interpretation, merely to argue such is akin to “supporting” them, and presumably you, I and Davey should indeed be punished under anti-terror laws.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
Attention seeking. Luxury belief types. Band wagon. Performative. Low hanging fruit for being cool. They reckon on only a very small chance of spending five years with incarcerated organised crime gang members and assorted psychotics in a prison environment.
A modest donation to one of the organisations trying to assist Palestinians is called for to rectify the balance. There are Christian, Islamic and secular versions, some have been operating for decades.
IANAE on the inner life of Reform, but as they have a 30%+ chance of forming a majority government next time, here is a question I have no idea about.
Does Reform have a modest collection of really serious names to be, between them:
CoE, Defence Minister, Health, Foreign Secretary? And most interesting of all, Home Secretary and Minister for Migration?
There are of course 100 other jobs to fill, including some of mega importance. But I can't even fill these. Can PB help?
No, they don’t. Almost nobody with serious policy, governance, or academic experience campaigns for Reform. The closest would be Anne Widdecombe and Jake Berry.
On the Epping hotel. I'm no planning expert to say the least, but have the council just won on the argument that there was a change of use that they didn't agree with?
That's the end of hotels for migrants across a lot of UK surely??
Prediction: Reform will win the next General election and Farage will be PM. Not because I want it but the left liberal kumbaya types continue to bury their heads in sand in complete denial of the absurdity that our asylum system has become. The more they refuse to listen to ordinary people with ordinary legitimate concerns, the more they try to stigmatise protest and generalise protestors as right wing racist xenophobes, the more they will do Reform's work for them as the only party prepared to listen...
Ali is... an interesting figure. He was thrown out of the Green Party for being anti-trans. He may be right, but he's not representative of Green Party thought.
I believe he is right. This is the best warning anyone could give of what will happen if immigration isn't brought under control.
Much of the concern about immigration seems to be only somewhat loosely connected to reality, so I'm uncertain whether bringing immigration under control will actually stop the rhetoric and false beliefs.
Leaving that aside, what does it mean to talk about immigration being brought under control? Is it about total numbers? These are falling considerably. If immigration is cut to a quarter of the peak under Boris Johnson, is that "under control"? Or is it about the types of immigration? Is it about asylum seeker numbers (also down) or numbers coming over in small boats (up)?
If immigration comes down, but the cost of care goes up considerably, as per the header, is that what people want?
Despite previous immigration, births continue to struggle to rise above deaths in the UK, and with lots more older folk coming down the line, per the lead, the workers to support them (us) all have to come from somewhere. As we’ve seen with Brexit, cut off one supply of young workers and the country simply needs to find another.
The burden of care might be cut if the early signs that the shingles vaccine significantly reduces incidence of dementia are confirmed, and meanwhile all us older folk need to be working on our leg strength, which in the longer term is key to keeping us out of residential care.
There's going to be a global shortage of young people before too long. What will we do then?
The Gulf State approach to immigration, where there’s no path to citizenship, income requirements on dependents, no recourse to public funds, housing, healthcare, and schooling, paid by your employer etc. in a UK context perhaps offer slightly lower NI contributions in exchange for no state pension accrual.
Pretty much anything else just feeds the Ponzi scheme, which will by definition collapse eventually. You can’t just keep importing people who will eventually add to the problem, but this all requires difficult and uncomfortable decisions, decisions which won’t see results before the next election and will annoy a lot of people in the process.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I get that and that is undoubtedly a risk at the margins. But how many people are really willing to risk an old age in a grubby, poorly maintained and very poorly staffed local authority care home so their kids can buy their homes on the property ladder? I suggest very few. Some money will escape, no question, but I still think it would catch a hell of a lot of money that is needed to fund care and reduce the burden on the taxpayer.
The problem in areas like the Flatlands is that there isn't much demand for super-duper shiny care homes for people with a lot of savings.
So they all have to cater to what the council will pay - or go bust.
Dundee is not exactly a wealthy area, although there is a tranche of old money here from the days of the Jute Mills and the glory days of DC Thomson and the Alliance Trust. But, and we looked into this in detail last year before the sad death of my MIL, there are completely different levels of care homes. Some have afternoon tea, rooms to entertain your guests, endless activities and social entertainment. Some, those with Local Authority customers, struggle to meet the Care Commission's staffing ratios, tired furnishings and fixtures, very, very ordinary food and a lot of people staring into space.
Of course, sadly, there will come a point when the patient will not know the difference but until they do it is a different life, it really is.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
It would be interesting to understand why care is cheaper in France, given average wages are largely similar in the two countries.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
This is a myth. In the same way people are luxuriating on benefits, a Council funded care home is no picnic. You wouldn't chose to be there and many of the staff wouldn't chose to be there either.
It's the detachment from reality that pervades UK society where they don't want to pay for services through tax but expect standards to be maintained. They want the young to pay but took away their chance for housing and having a family through house price inflation. They want high performance/high profit companies but make the skilled workers pay for their education through yet more debt.
So we borrow, pretend and extend the issues into the next generation until the music stops - which is round about now.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
From the desert to the sea, Western Sahara will be free!
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
This is a myth. In the same way people are luxuriating on benefits, a Council funded care home is no picnic. You wouldn't chose to be there and many of the staff wouldn't chose to be there either.
It's the detachment from reality that pervades UK society where they don't want to pay for services through tax but expect standards to be maintained. They want the young to pay but took away their chance for housing and having a family through house price inflation. They want high performance/high profit companies but make the skilled workers pay for their education through yet more debt.
So we borrow, pretend and extend the issues into the next generation until the music stops - which is round about now.
That's a shame, I was hoping it could keep going for at least another 45 years when I reach my life expectancy.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
It would be interesting to understand why care is cheaper in France, given average wages are largely similar in the two countries.
Property prices?
Care homes are fairly big buildings either modern build or converted old small hotels, vicarages or whatever.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
Here's the thing, though.
This causes moral hazard, because why save if the state will step in if you have no assets?
So either people will just spend their money to avoid having it taken away to pay for care bills or, they will find a way to give their assets to their children.
I have never understood the logic behind elderly people scrimping in retirement in order to leave a legacy to their children who in most cases don’t need it and don’t want it. If you have the funds to help your children or grandchildren to e.g. get on the property ladder, why not gift it to them now, rather than wait until you are dead, and risk it being spent on a care home. Enjoy your retirement, and spend it on yourself or maybe spend it on things that will help you remain in your own home instead of going into care? Sorry kids!
I think some of it is a psychological “legacy” thing. This idea that no matter what I passed something down and people made something with it. Perhaps some people don’t like the idea of gifting because they’d actually rather not really know what it’ll be spent on.
While I am alive I feel that I am able to help my daughter in various ways. When I am dead the only way I will be able to continue to help her will be by the assets I bequeath to her (and, if you are being charitable, by the upbringing I gave her).
Prediction: Reform will win the next General election and Farage will be PM. Not because I want it but the left liberal kumbaya types continue to bury their heads in sand in complete denial of the absurdity that our asylum system has become. The more they refuse to listen to ordinary people with ordinary legitimate concerns, the more they try to stigmatise protest and generalise protestors as right wing racist xenophobes, the more they will do Reform's work for them as the only party prepared to listen...
Ali is... an interesting figure. He was thrown out of the Green Party for being anti-trans. He may be right, but he's not representative of Green Party thought.
I believe he is right. This is the best warning anyone could give of what will happen if immigration isn't brought under control.
Much of the concern about immigration seems to be only somewhat loosely connected to reality, so I'm uncertain whether bringing immigration under control will actually stop the rhetoric and false beliefs.
Leaving that aside, what does it mean to talk about immigration being brought under control? Is it about total numbers? These are falling considerably. If immigration is cut to a quarter of the peak under Boris Johnson, is that "under control"? Or is it about the types of immigration? Is it about asylum seeker numbers (also down) or numbers coming over in small boats (up)?
If immigration comes down, but the cost of care goes up considerably, as per the header, is that what people want?
Despite previous immigration, births continue to struggle to rise above deaths in the UK, and with lots more older folk coming down the line, per the lead, the workers to support them (us) all have to come from somewhere. As we’ve seen with Brexit, cut off one supply of young workers and the country simply needs to find another.
The burden of care might be cut if the early signs that the shingles vaccine significantly reduces incidence of dementia are confirmed, and meanwhile all us older folk need to be working on our leg strength, which in the longer term is key to keeping us out of residential care.
There's going to be a global shortage of young people before too long. What will we do then?
Fewer babies born today will mean fewer oldies in 50-60 years' time.
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work. Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day. Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees. Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65. 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years. In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
The key to social care was set out in the Dilnot report on Social care as long ago as 2011. We need the elderly to pay a lot more of their care. The idea that the inheritance for the family is more important than the cost to the taxpayer is simply not sustainable nor even remotely equitable. Taxpayers with no aspirations of money for themselves are paying higher taxes on their income to subsidise wealth for the privileged. It is outrageous. Theresa May wasn't right about much but she was right about this and the British people were delusional in rejecting her solutions.
If we are more aggressive about prioritising the debts of the elderly over the inheritance they leave we can save ourselves at least £10bn a year now and more going forward. It would not solve our deficit, that is on a truly different and frightening scale, but it would be a significant step in the right direction for once. Carpe diem.
A couple of ways the British collective psyche really doesn't help here.
One is our obsession with inheritance- at some point, it flips from human and healthy into something more pathological; a last breath of power from beyond the grave. The other is our general dislike of the idea of paying enough tax to cover the cost of the things we want the state to deliver.
The other difficulty (as I understand it, others may know better) is that the costs of elderly care are very very lumpy. For some, it's not very much at all, whereas for others it would wipe out people wealthier than me. Spreading that risk seems fair enough- whether we do that by individual insurance or just by rolling it into what the state does, paid for by tax.
Part of the pathology of IHT may be its unfamiliarity - only 5% or so of estates pay* yet enormous fear is whipped up over it. Perhaps also projection - how people obsess about celebs, and celebs have to pay ... or for that matter, for all I know, aristos on telly programmes about upstairs and downstairs. I was really struck by Flatlander's remarks earlier about his mother being unhappy about days out at NT big houses because the poor aristos had had to give them up with IHT, one assumes thanks to Lloyd George and death duties etc. (for all that the true story is much more complex, and the aristos often did much better out of the NT than that, as the ensuing discussion showed ). Very revealing. Yet that was how they got the first OAPs under LG. There's the Para Handy story of that time, of an old woman having to beg a buckshee lift on the Vital Spark to go to ther workhouse - no family, couldn't cope any more, too poor - till the crew realise she hadn't heard about the new pension, and Captain Handy orders course reversed to take her back home. I don't know if it got into the film series, though.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
It would be interesting to understand why care is cheaper in France, given average wages are largely similar in the two countries.
Lower property costs, probably. Cheaper to build and heat care homes in France.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Yup. And yet they continue to demand more without confronting reality. “Someone else can pay for it”. Right.
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
Australia built the COVID "camps" that used pre-fab cabins (which I think are widely used in Australian mining industry as lots of workers fly in just to work so don't want a long term home).
However, didn't the UK government lose a court case when they were housed in former military accommodation as the courts deemed it was substandard and thus there are now minimum levels of facilities that legally must be provided.
Social care and SEND are bankrupting councils, and efficiency savings just won't cut it, so eventually the public will have to contemplate things they are currently avoiding. Won't be for awhile yet however.
Paying for taxis to send SEND kids to school is insane. The parents need to take responsibility or at least means test it so that anyone not on UC has to pay themselves or take their own kids.
I have to pay extra to have my grass clippings taken away.
The options are either local special schools or centralized schools with transport to and from.
That is where the costs come from
Also if you knew the cost of you actual bins (and had to pay for them? The garden recycling at £43 is a bargain
Firstly it’s ‘your’, in the spirit of Luckyguy, secondly I don’t pay £43 so I’m not sure you have a grasp of the numbers and thirdly it used to be part of the council tax, it was spun off and we had to pay extra. I’m hardly going to think I’m getting a bargain when I’m paying extra for something that used to be part of the council tax. I doubt pay as you go is something any council wants to consider as a whole.
I’m aware of where the SEND costs come from. I’m looking at areas where savings can be made and free taxis should be one.
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
It would be interesting to understand why care is cheaper in France, given average wages are largely similar in the two countries.
On the Epping hotel. I'm no planning expert to say the least, but have the council just won on the argument that there was a change of use that they didn't agree with?
That's the end of hotels for migrants across a lot of UK surely??
Only in reform and Tory councils.
Labour and Lib Dem councils will be rolling out the red carpet for them.
I know the fashionable view is that Trump has achieved nothing over the past week, but haven’t we essentially now confirmed that Ukraine needs security guarantees - now tentatively understood as comprising European boots on the ground and American air and logistical support; while Putin demands land - the most limited form of which might be de facto rather than de jure control of the Donbas.
If I understand correctly, Putin has conceded that some form (not NATO) of security for Ukraine might be conceded. And while Zelensky has noted that land cessation is constitutionally prohibited, a de facto cessation might not be.
Putin has even agreed to a bilateral with Zelensky, which I don’t think we’ve seen before.
Perhaps there is indeed ground - albeit incredibly narrow - for an agreement.
You're very brave to say that here - even to hint the big T might have done ok is heresy!
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work. Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day. Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees. Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65. 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years. In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
The people working in the care sector are extremely productive members of society, unless you are the sort of sad person who values landlords and City money movers as more productive than those who make other humans’ lives better.
On the Epping hotel. I'm no planning expert to say the least, but have the council just won on the argument that there was a change of use that they didn't agree with?
Nothing is more powerful in the UK than the planning system I guess, for good and (mostly) ill.
I'd add that dementia care is A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing. B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
It would be interesting to understand why care is cheaper in France, given average wages are largely similar in the two countries.
"PARIS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Dozens of retirement homes of the Orpea (ORP.PA) group across France were targeted by police raids on Tuesday as part of a judicial investigation over allegations of malpractice and possible mistreatment of nursing home residents.
The prosecutor's office said it had registered around 50 complaints relating to "institutional mistreatment" of elderly residents. An Orpea spokesperson confirmed the raids and said the company was cooperating with the investigators.
This follows the publishing early this year of a book by independent journalist Victor Castanet, relating to Orpea. The book, "Les Fossoyeurs," or The Gravediggers, sent shock waves through France and much soul-searching over how the elderly are treated in nursing homes"
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work. Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day. Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees. Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65. 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years. In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
The people working in the care sector are extremely productive members of society, unless you are the sort of sad person who values landlords and City money movers as more productive than those who make other humans’ lives better.
My brother has just left a job in the care sector to go back to the fast food sector - it's a lot less stressful and pays better, they're lucky he stuck around as long as he did.
Councils are spending an average of £2 in every £5 on staff pensions and debt interest payments before a penny is allocated to essential services.
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
Ed Davey says that calling Palestine Action terrorists is wrong. Good.
Violent attacks on businesses and Police officers one of whom ended up in hospitals.
Sabotaging planes and other assets intended for use in Ukraine and other places
They’re a terrorist group. Fuck them.
This moron supports them as it’s a cosy, middle class, obsession.
Reasonable people may disagree on how they should be designated. But the vote on proscribing them was passed pretty comfortably IIRC, so if people want to campaign on changing that decision fine, but it doesn't change what the law will require in the interim.
I just don't understand why these protesters have latched onto this one group? Nobody is saying they can't protest and call for a Palestinian state and so on. But do it without reference to one tiny splinter of the PA activist base.
It's just nuts.
It's because they are self evidently not terrorists as that term is understood by most people. Anti terror legislation is draconian, and is accepted as a necessary infringement on our liberties as long as it is reserved for genuinely dangerous, murderous groups. If they can proscribe PA they can proscribe pretty much anyone. I don't support PA but I much more vociferously don't support them being proscribed as a terror organisation.
I tend to agree that Labour have made a mistake in banning them. It's interesting how SirK has having changed sides over who are the goodies and the baddies in the human rights boxing ring seems not to have a deft touch at how to be a hard line enforcer. You have to pick your targets. On the whole don't pick the ones fill of slightly annoying Quaker old lady types and barmy clerics with Hodge Jones and Allen's and Birnberg Peirce's phone numbers in their pocket (never go out without them).
Councils are spending an average of £2 in every £5 on staff pensions and debt interest payments before a penny is allocated to essential services.
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
Let's just say I'm not super confident the government fair funding review will achieve much of substance.
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
How do you stop them running away?
Desertion is a pretty serious offense.
Congratulations and well done Robert. After three hours we are still mostly on topic. It could be a PB record! Helped by Leon still being offline, thankfully.
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work. Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day. Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees. Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65. 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years. In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
The people working in the care sector are extremely productive members of society, unless you are the sort of sad person who values landlords and City money movers as more productive than those who make other humans’ lives better.
You misunderstand - I'm not just talking about those who work in the care sector - I'm referring to those who provide unpaid care in the family whether for children, parents or grandparents. In many ways, the notion of caring for elderly relatives within the family was how society used to operate.
For many families, the expectation remains parents will care for children, children will care for parents and youn get large multi-generational families all in the same dwelling (or dwellings). Our more fractured and fragmented family environment these days means there is more reliance on paid for facilities where older relatives can receive care.
There's also the thorny issue of dementia care which is often beyond even the most dedicated individual. Specialist dementia care facilities are among the most expensive in the care sector.
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
Australia built the COVID "camps" that used pre-fab cabins (which I think are widely used in Australian mining industry as lots of workers fly in just to work so don't want a long term home).
However, didn't the UK government lose a court case when they were housed in former military accommodation as the courts deemed it was substandard and thus there are now minimum levels of facilities that legally must be provided.
That’s a political problem, not an equipment or logistics problem. Parliament is sovereign, can and should legislate that such accomodation is acceptable.
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work. Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day. Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees. Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65. 90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years. In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
The people working in the care sector are extremely productive members of society, unless you are the sort of sad person who values landlords and City money movers as more productive than those who make other humans’ lives better.
You misunderstand - I'm not just talking about those who work in the care sector - I'm referring to those who provide unpaid care in the family whether for children, parents or grandparents. In many ways, the notion of caring for elderly relatives within the family was how society used to operate.
For many families, the expectation remains parents will care for children, children will care for parents and youn get large multi-generational families all in the same dwelling (or dwellings). Our more fractured and fragmented family environment these days means there is more reliance on paid for facilities where older relatives can receive care.
There's also the thorny issue of dementia care which is often beyond even the most dedicated individual. Specialist dementia care facilities are among the most expensive in the care sector.
Agreed, but productivity doesn’t necessarily require payment, although there ought to be recompense for family members providing unpaid care.
Also agree about dementia care. Often, family carers don’t want to share or hand over caring responsibilities, even when it is obvious that specialist care is needed.
I was told by somebody in the know the Zuck had got increasingly grumpy about performance of their AI models and is constantly on the staff backs about why not doing better on such and such benchmark like the other AI labs.
It sounded all a bit Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley TV show.
On the Epping hotel. I'm no planning expert to say the least, but have the council just won on the argument that there was a change of use that they didn't agree with?
That's the end of hotels for migrants across a lot of UK surely??
Only in reform and Tory councils.
Labour and Lib Dem councils will be rolling out the red carpet for them.
Why is a boat housing asylum seekers in Weymouth any different to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Weymouth except for being much more expensive (£6,000 per month per resident)
Councils are spending an average of £2 in every £5 on staff pensions and debt interest payments before a penny is allocated to essential services.
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
Have to say there are some generalisations in the above.
It all depends on whether a council is a Unitary, a County or a District. Districts. for excample, have no responsibilities for social care while Counties do in the two-tier system.
Councils borrow from the Public Works Loan Board and obviously they have to pay interest on those loans and where those loans have been used for investment property, they haven't always worked.
Can you show me a council budget where 41% of "Revenue" is taken up with pensions and debt interest payments.
The Surrey County Council Budget for 2025/26 doesn't suggest this:
I know the fashionable view is that Trump has achieved nothing over the past week, but haven’t we essentially now confirmed that Ukraine needs security guarantees - now tentatively understood as comprising European boots on the ground and American air and logistical support; while Putin demands land - the most limited form of which might be de facto rather than de jure control of the Donbas.
If I understand correctly, Putin has conceded that some form (not NATO) of security for Ukraine might be conceded. And while Zelensky has noted that land cessation is constitutionally prohibited, a de facto cessation might not be.
Putin has even agreed to a bilateral with Zelensky, which I don’t think we’ve seen before.
Perhaps there is indeed ground - albeit incredibly narrow - for an agreement.
There are too many mixed signals flying around to actually work out what any formative agreement might be. Take for example, your line above: "the most limited form of which might be de facto rather than de jure control of the Donbas."
The problem is what is meant by 'the Donbas'. If it is taken to mean the areas that Russia already controls, then IMV that is an arguable position, if disreputable. But if it is taken to mean the entirety of Donbas, then that should be a non-starter. It would mean Ukraine is giving up positions it has spent years defending, loads of high ground, many cities (*), and hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would place Russia in a very advantageous position for when they restart the war. It gives Putin a heck of a lot, in exchange for essentially f-all.
As far as I can tell, there is no clarity in what the agreement might be about - and 'small' details like the above turn any deal from an acceptable one to a hideous one. And reasonable people can use the phrase 'the Donbas' meaning either, though the Putin-advantageous one is the more obvious.
Why is a boat housing asylum seekers in Weymouth any different to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Weymouth except for being much more expensive (£6,000 per month per resident)
It was meant as a glib aside not a serious comment.
I know the fashionable view is that Trump has achieved nothing over the past week, but haven’t we essentially now confirmed that Ukraine needs security guarantees - now tentatively understood as comprising European boots on the ground and American air and logistical support; while Putin demands land - the most limited form of which might be de facto rather than de jure control of the Donbas.
If I understand correctly, Putin has conceded that some form (not NATO) of security for Ukraine might be conceded. And while Zelensky has noted that land cessation is constitutionally prohibited, a de facto cessation might not be.
Putin has even agreed to a bilateral with Zelensky, which I don’t think we’ve seen before.
Perhaps there is indeed ground - albeit incredibly narrow - for an agreement.
You're very brave to say that here - even to hint the big T might have done ok is heresy!
That LYING POS (aka DOPEY DONALD) promised he would SORT OUT the Ukraine/Russia War within TWENTY-FOUR HOURS! It's now ALMOST SEVEN MONTHS since he took office, and the war IS STILL ONGOING!
High Court awards temporary injunction to Epping Council to block migrant housing in hotel
The problem is where do you put them and won’t this act as a green light for protests at other hotels .
Detain them at popup camps with high fences until they can be deported.
There’s plenty of military land out there, not technically difficult to have the Army fence off an area and put up 10,000 tents in a couple of weeks. They do this in other countries, and the COVID emergency plans had something similar domestically.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
Australia built the COVID "camps" that used pre-fab cabins (which I think are widely used in Australian mining industry as lots of workers fly in just to work so don't want a long term home).
However, didn't the UK government lose a court case when they were housed in former military accommodation as the courts deemed it was substandard and thus there are now minimum levels of facilities that legally must be provided.
That’s a political problem, not an equipment or logistics problem. Parliament is sovereign, can and should legislate that such accomodation is acceptable.
It's a political issue;
A former home secretary said it was better to use hotels to house asylum seekers rather than military sites such as MDP Wethersfield.
James Cleverly, the Conservative MP for Braintree, said when he was in cabinet he opposed the decision in 2023 to open the asylum seeker accommodation at a former air base near Wethersfield, Essex, but was "overruled".
Why is a boat housing asylum seekers in Weymouth any different to a hotel housing asylum seekers in Weymouth except for being much more expensive (£6,000 per month per resident)
Easier to control. Also better value for money, according to the last Government. Plus it's not in Weymouth city centre. Or rather wasn't. Edit: it was in the Portland Harbour complex.
Councils are spending an average of £2 in every £5 on staff pensions and debt interest payments before a penny is allocated to essential services.
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
Have to say there are some generalisations in the above.
It all depends on whether a council is a Unitary, a County or a District. Districts. for excample, have no responsibilities for social care while Counties do in the two-tier system.
Councils borrow from the Public Works Loan Board and obviously they have to pay interest on those loans and where those loans have been used for investment property, they haven't always worked.
Can you show me a council budget where 41% of "Revenue" is taken up with pensions and debt interest payments.
The Surrey County Council Budget for 2025/26 doesn't suggest this:
Channel 4 Going Inside 10 Downing Street In Steven Moffat Drama
Sherlock writer Steven Moffat is opening the doors to 10 Downing Street in a drama for Channel 4.
The UK’s most famous residency will be the subject of Number 10, which comes from Moffat’s ITV Studios-owned production house, Hartswood Films.
The show is, in effect, an Upstairs Downstairs-style drama looking to the activities of many people inside the property, which houses the British Prime Minister and their family during their terms. Politics will be put to aside as Moffat focuses on the fictional personalities that make up the home.
Per the synopsis: “10 Downing Street. There’s a Prime Minister in the attic, a coffee bar in the basement, and a wallpapered labyrinth of romance, crisis and heartbreak in-between. Set in the only terrace house in history with mice and a nuclear deterrent, it’s the only knock-through in the world where a hangover can start a war.
“The government will be fictional, but the problems will be real. We’ll never know which party is in power, because once the whole world hits the fan it barely matters. This is a show about the building and everyone inside. Not just the Prime Minister upstairs, but the conspiracy theorist who runs the cafe three floors below, the man who repairs the lift that never works, the madly ambitious ‘advisors’ fighting for office space in cupboards. Oh, and of course, the cat.”
The ending will take place before the beginning, the lead-up will be brilliant and the last episode will be disappointing, there will be a tragicomic married/divorcing couple, there will be a gay Anglican priest, the female roles will be underwritten and tend to hero-worship if not a villain, and if he's running another series simultaneously both will have a drop in quality. At one point the hero will lie and this will be instantly forgiven.
Just thank your lucky stars that Chris Chibnall isn't writing it.
Councils are spending an average of £2 in every £5 on staff pensions and debt interest payments before a penny is allocated to essential services.
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
Have to say there are some generalisations in the above.
It all depends on whether a council is a Unitary, a County or a District. Districts. for excample, have no responsibilities for social care while Counties do in the two-tier system.
Councils borrow from the Public Works Loan Board and obviously they have to pay interest on those loans and where those loans have been used for investment property, they haven't always worked.
Can you show me a council budget where 41% of "Revenue" is taken up with pensions and debt interest payments.
The Surrey County Council Budget for 2025/26 doesn't suggest this:
It's true many councils are deeply in debt but once again there's that undercurrent about the "pensions". Council staff can belong to one of a number of different pension schemes whether it be the LPGS, the Teachers' Pension or the Pension for firefighters and the Police. All are different with different levels of contribution and benefit and if your authority doesn't have responsibility for education and fire (most districts in the tow tier system) that will be less of a factor.
There's also the levels of payment to current and former Councillors who are (or were) Members of the Council to consider.
Epping is going to end up at the Supreme Court (UK version) isn't it?
The return of Baroness Hale and her brooch? 😂
I was slightly surprised to hear that the trigger for the riots was one of the asylum seekers at the hostel being charged with sexual assault of a 14 year old girl. The impression I had received was that it was just at the mere presence of the hostel. That puts a rather different spin on the issue.
Comments
That’s just stupid.
If you need a care home you will be put in one that the council chooses and not one you choose. You might be given a list of two or three but here's the rub: they will be the cheapest ones in a set geographical area. What you get offered will vary enormously depending on area and indeed just luck.
Care homes often cannot provide adequate care on the fees that councils are prepared to pay.
If you want choice and a better care home you have to get family to top up the fees.
If you need care in your own home and have run down your savings - the council will send in the cheapest agency they can find that has capacity. They will offer it out to contract to those agencies that will work for say £22 or £23 an hour when most want £30 or more.
Take a wild guess what some at least of those agencies that will work for a lot less than others are like.
Some councils may have an in-house service. You will get that.
These are the agencies that in many cases send people rushing in with only 15mins to get you on the toilet, have a basic wash, take meds and do a cup of tea or whatever.
If you want to have choice and power over where you spend the last two years or so of your life then be prepared to set aside your savings if you have them and forget inheritance.
At least he hasn't quoted Andrew Tate- yet.
Would explain the ashen faces
But officially classifying them as terrorists is, I suspect, politically naive to a massive degree. Unless there is information that has not been released (quite possible) then it is another example of this government shooting itself in the foot.
He’s reported as saying they should never have been proscribed as a terrorist organisation.
Of course they should.
If they don’t want to be treated as a terrorist organisation then don’t undertake acts that make them be treated as one,
Ten years ago he was issuing thunderous denunciations of Israel in almost Islamist terms, and launching blanket attacks on the proposal for the Govt to adopt the accepted international definition of Antisemitism.
Now he talks about very different things in the rest of that tweet.
*Not sure how this treats the case where IHT isn't paid till the second spouse dies: but the basic point remains.
They are out of their depth, and they know it.
So they all have to cater to what the council will pay - or go bust.
In this by-election, Poilievre faced a record 214 candidates, many of whom are associated with a protest group seeking electoral reform.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0l6jz8xlplo
Pollievre not simply fading away after having the Trump/Carney effect wipe out his lead entirely is somewhat impressive too.
I have to pay extra to have my grass clippings taken away.
That is where the costs come from
Also if you knew the cost of you actual bins (and had to pay for them? The garden recycling at £43 is a bargain
I have just spent the day taking my mum for a hospital appointment. She is 88, while my dad is 90. She struggles to walk more than 100 yards due to arthritis (she played tennis every week until she was 80 and it has finally caught up with her knees) while my dad can no longer drive because of his eyes. It all went well, the clinical service being excellent even if the Salisbury District Hospital is mostly portakabins, with long desolate corridors of derelict equipment. They have no external help apart me and my brothers dropping by every few weeks.
I dropped them off at their house after a pub lunch. I think there are several key factors to living well in old age.
1: good genes. The hand of cards we get at birth is critical in many ways
2: healthy eating, not much booze.
3: plenty of mental activity. My mum reads extensively, both play bridge weekly.
4: downsize to a manageable property no later than mid seventies, preferably somewhere where driving isn't critical.
5: stay married. Company is critical, both for mental stimulation, and for managing daily activities.
We should aim not at funding Social Care, but rather at avoiding it. Healthy lives, good access to timely healthcare, enough flexible working for family members in their fifties that they can help (my brothers are well aware that we will be doing much more as time goes on).
This isn't aimed at preserving our inheritance but rather at ensuring our parents enjoy life as much as possible. Social Care is sometimes the only way, but putting it off as far as possible should be our real aim.
European Union imports of Russian fossil fuel last year, €21.9 billion, exceeded European Union financial aid to Ukraine, €18.7 billion.
https://nitter.poast.org/PhilipWegmann/status/1957450514364305775#m
It's just nuts.
I'd add that dementia care is
A) skilled, my parent has gone through home care and a care home, only 2 or 3 of the carers can get them into a routine and cooperative with washing and dressing.
B ) carries a significant risk of violence
Another potential mitigation is that old people could minimise their health issues, not going to help Alzheimer's, but reductions in obesity, smoking and drinking will help other health issues.
The UK could also look at other countries, we have friends from across Europe some of whom have parents in the same situation and it is not as expensive in France and other countries.
(*) Some for good reasons; others for bad
Does Reform have a modest collection of really serious names to be, between them:
CoE, Defence Minister, Health, Foreign Secretary? And most interesting of all, Home Secretary and Minister for Migration?
There are of course 100 other jobs to fill, including some of mega importance. But I can't even fill these. Can PB help?
I am sick of reading 'why can't the unemployed wipe their arses'.
If you think social care boils down to wiping bottoms then you haven't a frigging clue what you are talking about.
https://archive.org/details/parahandytales0000neil_a1o0/page/260/mode/2up?q=pension
And ironically also page 172 which I had forgotten deals with the economics of pensioner farms ...
Sadly, under Taz’s interpretation, merely to argue such is akin to “supporting” them, and presumably you, I and Davey should indeed be punished under anti-terror laws.
A modest donation to one of the organisations trying to assist Palestinians is called for to rectify the balance. There are Christian, Islamic and secular versions, some have been operating for decades.
Almost nobody with serious policy, governance, or academic experience campaigns for Reform. The closest would be Anne Widdecombe and Jake Berry.
That's the end of hotels for migrants across a lot of UK surely??
Pretty much anything else just feeds the Ponzi scheme, which will by definition collapse eventually. You can’t just keep importing people who will eventually add to the problem, but this all requires difficult and uncomfortable decisions, decisions which won’t see results before the next election and will annoy a lot of people in the process.
Of course, sadly, there will come a point when the patient will not know the difference but until they do it is a different life, it really is.
It's the detachment from reality that pervades UK society where they don't want to pay for services through tax but expect standards to be maintained. They want the young to pay but took away their chance for housing and having a family through house price inflation. They want high performance/high profit companies but make the skilled workers pay for their education through yet more debt.
So we borrow, pretend and extend the issues into the next generation until the music stops - which is round about now.
Care homes are fairly big buildings either modern build or converted old small hotels, vicarages or whatever.
It’s a political will issue, not an equipment and logistics issue.
The other aspect of care for the elderly is the greater proportion of that care that happens outside residential facilities. You have various levels of domiciliary care and the one area not discussed too often is the role of care within the family.
We know there are 6.5 million carers in the UK.
3 million people combine caring for a loved one with paid work.
Every year, over 2 million people become carers, some overnight, some more gradually – so there is a new population of carers in the workforce every day.
Carers make up 11% of the total UK workforce, 1 in every 9 employees.
Eight out of ten carers are of working age, ie between 16 and 65.
90% of working carers are aged 30+ – in their prime employment years.
In 2019 Carers UK released research that suggests figures have increased significantly since the 2011 census. The Juggling work and care report found that there are around 4.87 million people in the UK combining work and caring responsibilities, compared with the 3 million in the census 2011. This is 1 in 7 of all workers, compared with the previous figures of 1 in 9 workers.
This is caring for both adults and children to be fair but still a far from insignificant number. Many would like, I believe, to be productive members of society and both work and provide care.
Thank you for your attention to this matter!
However, didn't the UK government lose a court case when they were housed in former military accommodation as the courts deemed it was substandard and thus there are now minimum levels of facilities that legally must be provided.
I’m aware of where the SEND costs come from. I’m looking at areas where savings can be made and free taxis should be one.
Labour and Lib Dem councils will be rolling out the red carpet for them.
"'I really do hope they do not put these people in houses of multiple occupancy within our community now."
Hmmm... What do we think the chances of that are?
https://www.reuters.com/business/frances-orpea-reduce-its-international-activities-2022-11-15/
"PARIS, Nov 15 (Reuters) - Dozens of retirement homes of the Orpea (ORP.PA) group across France were targeted by police raids on Tuesday as part of a judicial investigation over allegations of malpractice and possible mistreatment of nursing home residents.
The prosecutor's office said it had registered around 50 complaints relating to "institutional mistreatment" of elderly residents. An Orpea spokesperson confirmed the raids and said the company was cooperating with the investigators.
This follows the publishing early this year of a book by independent journalist Victor Castanet, relating to Orpea. The book, "Les Fossoyeurs," or The Gravediggers, sent shock waves through France and much soul-searching over how the elderly are treated in nursing homes"
Some 18pc of council tax revenue is used to service the cost of huge loans taken out over the last decade, as local authorities struggle to cut costs and face greater demand for services. Staff pension contributions account for a further 23pc of revenues on average, meaning that 41pc is swallowed up before any money is spent on core services
Add in the massive increase in SEND cost to councils over the past 5-10 years. No wonder they are all busto.
For many families, the expectation remains parents will care for children, children will care for parents and youn get large multi-generational families all in the same dwelling (or dwellings). Our more fractured and fragmented family environment these days means there is more reliance on paid for facilities where older relatives can receive care.
There's also the thorny issue of dementia care which is often beyond even the most dedicated individual. Specialist dementia care facilities are among the most expensive in the care sector.
https://x.com/nytimes/status/1957844403415921118?s=61
Also agree about dementia care. Often, family carers don’t want to share or hand over caring responsibilities, even when it is obvious that specialist care is needed.
It sounded all a bit Gavin Belson in Silicon Valley TV show.
It all depends on whether a council is a Unitary, a County or a District. Districts. for excample, have no responsibilities for social care while Counties do in the two-tier system.
Councils borrow from the Public Works Loan Board and obviously they have to pay interest on those loans and where those loans have been used for investment property, they haven't always worked.
Can you show me a council budget where 41% of "Revenue" is taken up with pensions and debt interest payments.
The Surrey County Council Budget for 2025/26 doesn't suggest this:
https://mycouncil.surreycc.gov.uk/ieDecisionDetails.aspx?ID=5837
The problem is what is meant by 'the Donbas'. If it is taken to mean the areas that Russia already controls, then IMV that is an arguable position, if disreputable. But if it is taken to mean the entirety of Donbas, then that should be a non-starter. It would mean Ukraine is giving up positions it has spent years defending, loads of high ground, many cities (*), and hundreds of thousands of civilians. It would place Russia in a very advantageous position for when they restart the war. It gives Putin a heck of a lot, in exchange for essentially f-all.
As far as I can tell, there is no clarity in what the agreement might be about - and 'small' details like the above turn any deal from an acceptable one to a hideous one. And reasonable people can use the phrase 'the Donbas' meaning either, though the Putin-advantageous one is the more obvious.
(*) By the Ukrainian definition.
THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!!!
A former home secretary said it was better to use hotels to house asylum seekers rather than military sites such as MDP Wethersfield.
James Cleverly, the Conservative MP for Braintree, said when he was in cabinet he opposed the decision in 2023 to open the asylum seeker accommodation at a former air base near Wethersfield, Essex, but was "overruled".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy4vjvdn8lwo
(Yes, Wethersfield is in the Braintree constituency.)
There was a case about some specific asylum seekers, but the site is still open and being used, so the principle must have been resolved.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/councils-spend-one-in-every-five-pounds-on-interest-payments-r0q6hg8js
Just thank your lucky stars that Chris Chibnall isn't writing it.
It's true many councils are deeply in debt but once again there's that undercurrent about the "pensions". Council staff can belong to one of a number of different pension schemes whether it be the LPGS, the Teachers' Pension or the Pension for firefighters and the Police. All are different with different levels of contribution and benefit and if your authority doesn't have responsibility for education and fire (most districts in the tow tier system) that will be less of a factor.
There's also the levels of payment to current and former Councillors who are (or were) Members of the Council to consider.
The Welsh Rugby Union (WRU) will propose reducing the number of professional sides in Wales from four to two.
Welsh rugby's governing body has produced a radical plan which includes its "optimal solution" for transforming the struggling game.