The Government's announcement on social care is going to hit young people and lower earning householders the hardest.

Worryingly, it has also now established three new principles. (thread)

inews.co.uk/news/politics/…
First, there will be no free or universal care system for the elderly and disabled. The user will pay and their assets will be liquidated in the process.
Second, that general taxation will not rise, nor will it be used to force the richest to bear the biggest burden.
Third, that the wealth of the richest will be protected - both by the cap on lifetime payments and by the refusal to contemplate taxing wealth to stop the funding gap.
Over time this will lead, as the Prime Minister boasted, to "profoundly conservative" outcomes.

The property wealth of elderly, middle class people in Southern England will be saved; the incomes of the working-age population will be raided.
Worse, as the NHS and social care systems integrate, the user pays principle will be extended, as can hypothecation.

Ultimately this should be seen as a Trojan horse for ending universal, free at the point of use, health care. Something the Tories have long hankered for.
For now, the Government will try to blame the impact of COVID-19 as the need for this tax increase.

But the truth is social care has been consistently and dangerously underfunded for many years.
This has resulted in a severe lack of care for the most vulnerable in our society, and the chronic underpayment and mistreatment of the workers delivering that care.

The tax on low-income earners won’t be nearly enough to address the chronic issues in our social care system.
How could we fund social care fairly?

For starters, a 1% tax on millionaires alone would raise £260bn over five years.

Equalising capital gains tax and income tax would provide us with approximately £90bn over five years.

Effective, well-funded and compassionate social care is clearly possible. It does not need to come at the cost of taxing those earning the least in our society.

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More from @labourlewis

18 Aug
I was disappointed to not be selected to speak in the debate on Afghanistan today. I served there in 2009. This doesn't makes me an expert on that country but it does - like others who’ve worked or served there - give a perspective I hoped would be useful in deliberations.
I have intense pride in the good and decent men and women I served with, both British and Afghan. Many of them paid physically and mentally for their efforts on our behalf. And of course others – too many - never returned home at all.
Unlike some that spoke today, I was never certain of the legitimacy of our precence in Afghanistan. I wanted to believe I was there for the right reasons – but it’s hard to convince yourself of that cause when you witness first-hand the human toll of your presence.
Read 11 tweets
6 Apr
Thread:
1. I think we need to first define ‘opposition’. The problems facing @UKLabour are far more to do with existential structural factors rather than any one leader/policy, however they’re perceived. Changing the latter will not solve the former.
2. The Tories are fast becoming hegemonic. They’re also no longer the Tory party as we know but increasingly an English nationalist party. One that is south/south eastern centric and reactionary. This has implications for the acceleration of support for @theSNP & @Plaid_Cymru
3. Because of the nature of this Tory variant of English nationalism and political nationalist accelerations in Scotland & Wales - other regional movements like @FreeNorthNow or similar movements will grow as a result. Indeed they already are.
Read 5 tweets
10 Jan
What I think he actually meant to say was, respecting party democracy, he would seek to overturn the @UKLabour policy of #FreeMovement at our next annual conference. Top down, policy by diktat rarely ends well.
It does raise the question - why do this now just before the Scottish elections? It simply helps the SNP galvanise their vote in 68% remain Scotland?
Post-Brexit it now seems increasingly clear the Scottish people have two clear choices before them:
1. Union with a declining imperial power, ruled by hard-right, neoliberal English nationalists - or (cont)
Read 4 tweets
12 Dec 20
THREAD
1. Anyone who thinks English exceptionalism, nationalism and ‘regulatory realignment’ - the root drivers of Brexit - would have ended with a ‘soft brexit’ ie a customs union or a Norwegian style deal, misunderstands what brexit has always been about.
2. ‘No-deal’ has always been the logical goal for those who’ve driven the brexit agenda. The question @UKLabour should be asking the govt is, ‘what part of the ‘level playing field’ do you want to change? Food standards? Env protections? Workers rights?
3. The issue of fish, whilst playing to worst instincts of territorial jingoism is, excuse the pun, a red herring. This is about phase 2 of the neoliberal project. Building on the gains of the last 40 years.
Read 11 tweets
9 Jun 20
Anyone tearing down more statues of racists or slave traders should face the "full force of the law". mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…
2. But Mr Johnson, presumably these GIs tearing down a symbol of racist oppression and supremacism are doing good?
3. And yet taking down Cecil Rhodes - an avowed racist, supremacist and oppressor to millions of black Africans is defended by your administration?
Read 11 tweets
18 Jan 20
The aim of Tory govt in the 80s was to smash the postwar consensus of unionised work & the welfare state & place the “market” as the cornerstone of UK governance.Blair & Brown took this & added a layer of income redistribution to blunt its harshest effects theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
I don’t agree with the above simply to ‘trash’ the @UKLabour brand. We did much good between 1997-2010. But till you understand what we got right and along with what we got wrong, our analysis will never be complete... cont
As such we’ll make the same mistakes again... something I touched here in 2015. Cont...
newstatesman.com/politics/2015/…
Read 6 tweets

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