Andy B’s speech

[TheRealSmurfette]

What did you like / not like?

Yes there was.

If that’s the majority of the bill, it won’t feel like a national care service that’s on a par with the national health service. Surely paying for accommodation and food in hospital is reasonable by your argument?

No. When you are in hospital you still have to pay your mortgage or rent. It's not your home.

When you are in hospital it is temporary it is not your home and you will hopefully go home at some point or into care. But if you are permanently in residential care that is your home. It is fair enough to pay for accommodation costs and food in that case.

Eta: NHS continuing healthcare is obviously different. And very hard to secure.

All smaller parties with deep pockets of support like Reform would benefit massively from PR. They lose out under fptp. That's always been the case.

They would have for sure at the last GE given number of votes. It’s hard to say for the next one. They’re not small anymore, comparatively.

Given Labour wish to strengthen union powers and those running the water companies if nationalised will he public sector workers, will they have the right to strike?

Talk is cheap. The country is falling apart so I’ll judge him on his actions not his words because anyone can read a speech that’s been prepared by a team of people.

They aren't small but I don't think their support is wide. They get a lot of votes in poorer towns and deprived coastal areas. They would benefit from PR. I may be wrong. I also think they are on the wane.

The polls currently suggest they're on the wane, thankfully. There is a long way to go though. I hope Badenoch can pull her socks up and win back some of the Reform supporters.

He writes his own speeches. And that’s verified from a number of sources from Downing Street to his wife. Nobody else could write something so heartfelt and so personal. And I say that as someone who used to write speeches professionally for other people.

Many people don’t sell their home before going into care. Moreover, the whole point is that AB doesn’t think people should have to sell their home to fund care. So how is his proposal solving that?

By keeping the hotel costs within sensible income levels. Care home residents still get their occupational and state pensions.

"Fund care". Not "fund accommodation costs". There is a difference.

Although the NHS doesn’t charge for a hospital stay.

People don’t live on NHS wards. Care homes are where people live.

Yes. As discussed above.

So living costs/food/utility bills will be payable in a care home. But if they expect me to hand over my entire pension (state plus private) and assuming it is a big one, rather than a more modest or the very basic one, will I get an en-suite and a bigger room or not? Or will I get to choose a care home with more fancy facilities and others in the same position as me? In all likelihood yes, because you cannot expect someone with a 100k pension to be paying the same for a basic room as someone on the 13k state pension. People just won’t do it. Or they will opt out of the state run care homes. So there would still be private care homes or the option to pay for care in a cheaper foreign country ultimately. I think the latter will grow in Asian countries, for example to accommodate the care needs of much of Europe and the US.

I can’t see most people opting for a care home in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language and their family can’t visit them. I wouldn’t.

Maybe it will depend if you choose to stay at an Easy hotel style care home with fast food for £60 a night or a Doubletree style care home with a three course dinner for £400 a night.

He already seems to be deferring to the next government.
Why not just do for the triple lock next year? Why not just agree to Heathrow 3rd runway?
Why bring in Help to Sell to burden young people with more debt instead of just letting the housing market decline?

I preferred Starmer than this ‘Hope in every postcode’ bollocks.

“I can’t see most people opting for a care home in a foreign country where they don’t speak the language and their family can’t visit them. I wouldn’t.”

@blossomtoes - well if my pension were 150k a year and they were trying to take the entirely of it and I could get a 5 class treatment in Thailand instead and still give my kids 50k or more a year, then yes, I would go to Thailand. For sure, 100 per cent. Especially if the expectation were for me to pay a full whack tax on the 150k pension plus subsidise everyone else in the care home.
The point being there has to be a reasonable ceiling on the hotel costs. You cannot pay tax and be expected to subsidise others on top.

I fully expect there to be a ceiling. The entire point is to make care less of a rip off. I wouldn’t be prepared to leave the country to save money. I’d sooner swallow the reds.

By the time you need a care home travel to a foreign country is difficult if not impossible and medical insurance would be prohibitive

Because people would moan that he doesn't have a mandate to end the triple lock etc.