Boris Johnson has just confirmed what all young people have known for years - the Government doesn’t care for us.
His response to a very real social care crisis has shown little to no regard for the interests of the working population and will only serve to make the most impoverished groups in the country poorer with higher rates of unemployment.
Boris’ plan to solve our almost perpetual social care crisis is funded by a 1.25 percent increase in National Insurance. Although 1.25 percent doesn’t sound like that much, when you realise that this is a 10 percent growth in the tax rate for those earning less than £50,000, it is immediately alarming.
This will be particularly upsetting to those, like me, who voted Conservative in 2019. In order to secure our votes, Boris made a manifesto commitment to not increase our taxes. By breaking this promise he has confirmed what we’ve all known for a long time - the political establishment is either fundamentally dishonest or fundamentally incompetent.
When Conservatives break manifesto commitments not to raise taxes they lose elections. Most famously we saw it in George HW Bush’s famous “read my lips: no new taxes” speech. When he ultimately reneged on this promise it was used to attack his Republican party's fiscal reputation leading to the election of Bill Clinton in 1992.
Voters react to these measures by questioning if they can't trust Conservatives to not raise taxes, what can they trust them to do? Their answer - nothing.
However, not all tax increases are a bad thing. If the Tories were raising taxes in a way that would improve people’s standards of living then I’m sure voters would overlook the intervention. And all else held equal, it's a good thing that the Government is increasing funding to the NHS. It's also a good thing to cap social care costs at £86,000, and to increase the upper asset threshold above which people will have to fund their care costs in full to £100,000.
Yet the point of the welfare state is to look after the most needy and ensure that everyone has a good standard of living. Where debt is high and budgets are tight, it's even more important we focus on ensuring that the most needy get these subsidies rather than making lavish handouts to those who don’t necessarily need it.
A quarter of all pensioners are currently living in households with wealth exceeding £1,000,000. The average household headed by someone over 65 has wealth exceeding £690,000 - in contrast, the average one headed by someone between 25 and 34 is worth less than a fifth of that. Not all pensioners need this help.
The routes of this policy lie in a report commissioned by David Cameron. These policies were made to achieve, what is now a manifesto promise, to make sure no one should have to sell their home to fund their own social care. But why shouldn’t people sell their homes when they no longer need them and go into care? Those who own expensive homes are now in an extremely privileged position - one that a third of young people will never be able to achieve.
When one calls for costs to be capped for wealthy homeowners, they’re not calling for an abstract rule to prevent their prices being beyond their wealth. They’re calling for someone else, working people, to pay for it for them. Housing is an extremely scarce asset in high demand that most working people don’t own. A system that forces those who aren’t able to own a home to subsidise those who are is clearly a regressive one that must be avoided.
It will never be fair for the working poor to be made poorer to help maintain the luxuries of wealthy pensioners. People in care homes don’t need empty houses just so their descendants can be privileged by inheriting them when they die. Instead, we should encourage these houses to be sold to help relieve the burden on taxpayers and to increase the supply of housing helping to make it more affordable to working people.
Taxes are often praised as operating like Robin Hood, but Boris is acting more like King John here. He’s taking money from the poor and using it to maintain the luxuries of the rich. This goes against his manifesto commitments, it is regressive, and it shouldn’t be taken as necessary to fund social care .
A Government that would take such a step isn’t one deserving of anyone’s support.
