What's the social-democratic answer to the care crisis? That's the question that should guide Labour today. The answer is 1/ As a universal social need, care should be free at the point of use and funded from general taxation... that's been a Labour value since the year dot...
2/ Nobody is asking Labour to design this on the back of an envelope but to state the principle. It may need a decade to get there, like zero net carbon, but the principle has to be clear... and here's why...
3/ Since health and social care need to integrate, and one is user pays and the other free at the point of use, over time the user pays principle will erode the NHS... so will hypothecation...
4/ The way is now clear philosophically for the Tories to hypothecate all NHS spending, and then turn it into a form of social insurance...
5/ It should be easy enough to oppose the Health and Social Care Levy. It's a new hypothecated tax, and distributionally hits workers and self-employed hardest... the alternative?
6/ Spelled out clearly in Funding Real Change - a Labour NEC Clause V document - a) raise CGT and b) raise tax on dividends... labour.org.uk/wp-content/upl… 
7/ You would have to redo the sums of @RNMacqueen given changes to corporation tax since then, and the small dividends tax hike in the H&SL, but this remains the clearest Labour policy on social care spending to date...
8/ In fact the Labour response to H&SC falls into two halves: the NHS spending boost should have come from general taxation - funding the social care cap/ceiling could have come from CGT or dividends as it's only about £5bn of the £36bn
9/ Nobody is calling for Labour to improvise a full alternative budget - but the principles of opposition to the levy should be clear: against hypothecation, against the hit on working families and asset-poor communities...
10/ And it's from those principles that you evolve a short-term alternative: raise CGT, fund the NHS shortfall from general taxation, which has to rise at the top end as (again) proposed by Labour in 2019
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