While I feel I have earned the right not to pay National Insurance, it is rather iniquitous that I should be exempt from a rise which would go to fund my old-age care, should I need it. A general tax should be levied, but not to fund the social care of those who can afford to pay it from assets.
I do have a problem with the people I hear saying the state needs to pay to prevent their parents' house being sold to pay for care. What they are asking for is the tax payer to fund their inheritance.
If your elderly parent requires care and has a valuable house then, under the current system, it's not only right, but just that the fees are paid from what would be your inheritance. I don't have a problem with that. I also don't agree with shuffling the house into the children's names such that it appears the parent has assets below the threshold for the state to step in - it's legal, but immoral and therefore unjust.
On the other hand, dementia is just as much a disease as any other long term, chronic illness and should therefore come under the NHS. It's not as if everyone will get it - the total population prevalence of dementia among over 65s is 7.1%. This equals one in every 79 (1.3%) of the entire UK population, and 1 in every 14 of the population aged 65 years and over. What is perhaps a scandal is the cost of care home fees, which can produce a 35-40% profit.
The NHS does actually fund some long term care, depending on the nature of that care, but the rules are complex and mind-bendingly difficult to negotiate..
Here's a suggestion; the state pays for your care in case of dementia, but it gets your house until you die and rents it out to help defray the cost of care. Once you die, the house is returned to your family within 6 months.
Moving on:
"The HGV driver shortage is due to Brexit."
"No it's not, it's due to Covid."
"No it's not, it's Brexit."
"Liar, it's due to Covid."
Who presided over both Brexit and the government's lax and tardy response to Covid? Let me guess...
The truth is that the driver shortage developed well before Covid appeared on the scene. It has been years in the making. An aged workforce, IR35 and low pay all (the average starting salary is £21,300 and top salaries £60k, with an average of £32,100) contributed. Brexit undoubtedly had an effect as Europeans were a high proportion of the driving workforce in the UK and many have left. Covid also had an effect, but the Pingdemic is past us and yet the shortage still persists due to the lack of new blood, retirements and European drivers not wanting to stay, quite understandably, in a hostile country.
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