I wonder how many more times Treeza can get away with attacking the Tories' natural constituency before they actually open their dim rheumy eyes and finally realise they're being taking for a ride?
First we had the Gideon's Dividend Tax, the biggest single tax hike on small business owners in my lifetime, and now....introducing...the Dementia Tax, the most socialist piece of tax planning since the days of Harold Wilson.
Think about it - where are houses priced at the most ridiculous levels in this country? That's right London and the South. The residents of those homes are also the most likely to vote Tory anywhere in the UK. The Tories are saying that should those residents be unfortunate enough to need care, either in a home or at home, then all but £100K of the value of their home will be taken into account when paying for it.
Finchley semi-detached house owner Mr Smith, whose wife sadly passed on three years ago finds he needs care, and Finchley council take £650K of the utterly stupid £750K his house is "worth" into account. Mr Jones in a similar situation in an ex-mining village outside Doncaster has all of £50K of his identical house, worth £150K taken into account by Doncaster council. Ergo the "rich" (on paper at least) houseowner loses 86% of his house value, while the "poor" home owner loses a mere 33%. Socialism in action, in the distorted view of your average blinkered Tory, at any rate.
As ever, the party who reckon they're the ones to be trusted with the economy, you know, the same party who have accrued more debt since 2010 than all previous Labour governments combined, have not thought this through. One hopes that the fine print of this draconian and avoidable pernicious tax takes into account that in my little scenario above, Doncaster council are getting £600K less than Finchley council for the same provision of care. Either a future Tory government takes social care back into government hands, which is unlikely, or it distributes the funds fairly, in this case moves £300K from Finchley to Doncaster council. More likely, those living in the affluent South will get a far better standard of care in their dotage, and sod the rest of us.
If Corbyn's Labour Manifesto had included a policy along these lines, the media would have ripped him apart like rabid vultures for its blatant inequity and for not explaining it properly. Is too much to ask for similar scrutiny from journos in this case? That's a rhetorical question, by the way.
Sadly, there will still be more than enough turkeys voting for Xmas from the older generation to ensure a thumping Tory majority. We are all going to die...and our offspring are going to pay for it by having their inheritance taken away.
Update 12:50pm 22/5/17: In the inevitable first sign of backtracking from Weak & Wobbly Treeza, she is now hinting at an as yet unspecified cap on costs taken from house values towards care. This may mean that our friend from Finchley will "only" have his estate fork out £500K instead of £650K...possibly. So that's OK then...
