Right

I am not someone who normally expresses particularly strong political views, except perhaps occasionally to those who know me well, and I think I won’t get into an argument about it. However, there is a Tory that just sums up what that party is about and why it is dangerous to vote for them. Ultimately they are self-centred, out of touch and only interested in the middle-classes (or “above”).

They have announced a much hyped policy that if at the age of 65 you have £8000 in savings that can be used to negate the risk of having to sell your home to pay for going into a care home. On the surface that sounds like a reasonably good plan. Who wants to lose their home, particularly if they have invested of their mine and themselves in it? However, the reason the Tories advocate this plan is to reward those who have “done the right thing” i.e. saved up their money.

That is such a dangerous argument. It is putting a morality on people’s ability to save. This is the same Tory party who in the next breath have criticised the Labour government for their being two and a half million old people in poverty. I don’t think that statistic is actually true (having checked some of the data), but let’s carry through that Tory argument. Presumably, they would then have to say “Those two and half million people who are in poverty, do not have £8000 and this is because they have den the wrong thing”.

I am all for people taking responsibility for their own lives, but that people don’t have £8000 in savings does not equate to having done the wrong thing with money. What about people on the minimum wage? What about people who have had ill-health that has affected their ability to earn money? What about people who have never been in debt in their life, but have not had the capacity to save because they needed the money to keep a roof over their head and to feed themselves?

It is a policy aimed at the middle-class voter and is totally out of touch with the reality of many people’s lives. Nobody should unnecessarily lose their home, but turning it into a virtue for the better off to be able to pay a sum because they have “lived right” surely tells you all you need to know about how fair a country we will have if the Tories win the election. A scary, scary prospect.