The triple lock was introduced in 2010 by David Cameron’s Coalition Government when Steve Webb (Lib Dem) was Minister of Pensions, to restore the erosion which had taken place since the earnings link was replaced with a prices’ link in the 1980s. To replace the triple lock with a prices’ link or 2.5%, as was […]
A national care service – questions for Burnham (and us)
On the cusp of sixty, having witnessed so many speeches of unconvincing emotion – Thatcher: the tragic King’s Cross fire, Blair: “I love this party, it was losing I hated”, or various Lib Dem leaders over the years lecturing Liberal Assembly or the early Lib Dem conferences that we weren’t “serious about power” – it […]
Let’s fix social care
Andy Burnham has rightly made fixing social care a top priority and seems, on the face of it, to be genuinely interested in reaching a cross party consensus. Social care has been a priority for Liberal Democrats for a long time as well – I shed more than one or two tears when I first […]
It is not just about paying for social care
Thirty years after the then Government established the “Royal Commission on Long Term Care”, five years after the 2021 Health and Social Care Act was to sort out social care once and for all, social care is still in crisis and, at long last. moving up the agenda of Government. The NHS and social care […]
Hidden meanings in social care
Andy Burnham has promised to ‘fix’ social care and to ‘use some of his political capital on the issue’. The first steps are expected this week. Ed Davey, who has campaigned strongly on the issue, promises to work with him on a cross-party basis. All good. The problem is that people mean very different things […]
Mathew on Monday – Andy Burnham must act on Social Care now
Tory leader Kemi Badenoch is right about one thing: social care reform demands serious thought. But she is wrong to insist that the answer cannot involve asking those with the broadest shoulders (the very richest) bear the biggest burden and contribute a bit more through taxation. If we are serious about fixing one of Britain’s […]
National Conversations we need to have
Nearly a year ago the Strategic Defence Review (SDR) set out its understanding of the transformed international environment this country now faces, and called for the government to lead ‘a national conversation’ on how we should respond. Yet since then there has been silence from the Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary, and only muffled warnings […]
We need to talk about the end of life
We need to talk about how the UK supports its growing number of older people, and in particular about the end of life. One of the many weaknesses of British politics is that its structure does not make it easy to link related issues, But the age of retirement, pensions for the elderly, the rising […]
15 July 2025 – yesterday’s Federal press releases
Adass survey should make Government “heed warning” they cannot fix the NHS without fixing social care Thames Water results: time for Governmentt to end “nightmare” and put Thames Water into Special Administration Ed Davey sets out plan to halve energy bills in a decade and takes on Farage’s fossil fuel myths Afghan data breach: Government […]
11 June 2025 – today’s Spending Review press releases
“Smoke and mirrors” spending review could leave a blackhole for social care Police funding short-fall as families face council tax bombshell to pick up the tab Spending review: Reeves has put farmers “at the back of the Treasury queue” Welsh rail funding announcement – Wales getting the scraps again Lib Dems comment on defence, Acorn, […]