Something strange is going on here. We all happily pay taxes so the NHS can provide cancer treatment that we may not need ourselves. I think we would all do the same to provide long term care for others, even though the clammy fingers of dementia and incontinence might never close around our own necks. But instead Dilnot has come up with a system, however much better than the disgraceful existing one, where the unlucky individual pays directly (unless of course he has been too feckless or unfortunate to build up any assets, in which case he pays nothing), and then when the limit is reached the state takes over. This has all the hallmarks of a compromise; and if it looks like a compromise and walks like a compromise, it's probably a fudge.
I'm with Dilnot in that we need a system that spreads the load widely across society, so everyone contributes according to their means. Fortunately we have just such a system in place already. It's called taxation. Funnily enough a report commissioned by Tony Blair over a decade ago came to just this conclusion. That Blair shelved the idea in a time of plenty (preferring to spend money instead on diversity co-ordinators, street football facilitators and the war in Iraq) should tell us a lot about the chances of this approach being adopted by the Cameron government today, and perhaps also about the process which informed the Dilnot approach: after all, why recommend the simple and logical solution that HMG has recently rejected when you can adopt a complex and untried one that costs the Government less, taking the money instead from people who were naive enough to acquire modest savings?
It seems to me that there are two things to infer from this, one obvious, the other not. The less obvious one is that we are now entering the debatable lands where public spending priorities, previously taken for granted, compete with each other for favour. And that existing commitments, however unappealing, are more likely to survive than new ones, however meritorious, are to be taken on.
The other point is that if you have built up an asset, the Government will come for you. In the end. If it doesn't happen after the Dilnot report, it will happen eventually. New Labour left Britain borderline broke, and if you've got some money, the Government will be looking for ways to take it off you.
