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Schools and offices have gone back; rush hour traffic and road rage are back; soon the world will be back to pre-pandemic pandemonium, it seems. In Westminster, too, normal service has been

resumed this week. MPs are back in force, enabling both the PLP and the 1922 Committee to hold meetings addressed by Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak respectively. Their unaccustomed

physical proximity in the corridors, bars and tearooms of the Commons means that plots, rebellions, leaks and all the other behavioural characteristics of the species _homo politicus _will

soon be on display again. Already, a good old-fashioned political row has broken out about how to fund social care _and _clear the NHS backlog simultaneously. The dispute has been brewing

over the summer; it is now reported to be splitting the Cabinet and the Conservative Party. The arguments are finely balanced, the details arcane and the sums of money astronomical. But one

thing is likely to stick in the voters’ minds — and their throats. A sharp rise in National Insurance to pay for the new policy may not contradict the letter of the Tory manifesto, which

promised not to raise income tax, but it certainly does the spirit. A broken promise is never forgotten and seldom forgiven — in politics as in the rest of life. This is why there is only a

handful of Lib Dems in the Commons, where there used to be fifty or more. That was before they broke the promise to abolish tuition fees — a decision which had just as good a rationale as

the hike in NI. Those who had lent the Liberals their votes in 2010, enabling them to enter government for the first time since the 1920s, have never trusted them again. Nick Clegg lost his

seat, left politics and emigrated to California to work for Facebook. His wife, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, now contributes excellent pieces comparing life in America and Europe to

_TheArticle, _for example here . The Cleggs have evidently flourished abroad, but a political comeback is not on the cards. So: is Boris Johnson risking a similar fate by penalising workers

to pay for pensioners? Actually, he is clobbering the retired too, by scrapping the triple lock on pensions — another manifesto promise that has been “suspended”, probably until the next

election. To be fair, the perception of generational injustice is artificial: we all grow old, if we are lucky enough, and nothing shocked the nation more during the pandemic than the crisis

it exposed in care homes. As for the NHS: we all need it sometimes but the health service, too, benefits the elderly disproportionately. Do we therefore object to paying for it with our

taxes? No — hence the logic of diverting the extra £10 billion to be raised from National Insurance to give the NHS a “temporary” boost to bring waiting lists under control. Yet those extra

billions of our money represent less than five per cent of the £212 billion cost of health and social care in 2020-21. It is even dwarfed by the £62 billion added to the health budget by

Covid in one year. Some of this extraordinary expenditure may not be needed in future, but there is no guarantee of that. What we have witnessed is a massive diversion of national resources

into health — one that may prove to be permanent. The additional funding stream from National Insurance is not quite a drop in the ocean, but it is unlikely to be enough to plug the gaps in

the NHS and to pay for an entirely new system of social care. For those suffering from or caring for the frailties of old age, the rule will remain: jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never

jam today. No politician will ever again risk the unscrupulous charge of imposing a “dementia tax” — least of all Boris Johnson. With all these caveats, the Prime Minister’s reform does

promise to address some of the injustices of the present regime. The new system of caps and floors on lifetime costs for individuals should benefit many of the elderly and their families.

Others will, however, remain obliged to pay for their own care, simply because they won’t qualify for exemption under a means test, however defined. What is lacking is an insurance market

for social care. If the Government had offered to cap the liabilities and regulate the premiums, the private sector could have provided a means for people to insure themselves throughout

their working lives. If we don’t trust insurance companies, the state could have set up a non-profit equivalent. With proper insurance, there is no good reason why anybody should be forced

to sell their homes to pay for care. Nor need the care sector be a “Cinderella” service, any more than the private health sector now is. Unfortunately, this Conservative Government has

trouble believing in its own rhetoric. It does not trust the private sector to deliver an affordable system to fund social care — even though most care homes are, in fact, private. The

result is that National Insurance will rise and workers will find their pay packets falling for no obvious reason or direct benefit. Tory governments have put up taxes before, of course, but

they have seldom fared well unless the burden is eventually reduced. Even Margaret Thatcher was forced to raise taxes initially, though she and her second Chancellor Nigel Lawson delivered

spectacular tax cuts later. Her third Chancellor, John Major, replaced her after the fiasco of a new and regressive local government tax, dubbed the “poll tax” by Labour. But Major has his

own financial fiasco with Black Wednesday. He sacked his first Chancellor Norman Lamont but his second, Ken Clarke, also raised taxes. They lost by a landslide. David Cameron and George

Osborne cut spending instead to deal with the consequences of the banking crisis they inherited, but it is the legacy of their austerity policies in social care and the NHS that is now

forcing Boris Johnson to resort to breaking a manifesto promise. Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, is determined not to carry the can for this decision. Boris may be proved right that, in response to

the pandemic, public opinion has shifted to the Left and will accept the need for higher taxes. Either way, however, the Prime Minister will “own” what is unmistakably his policy. He is

reported to be in “invincible mode”, dismissing opposition in Cabinet and on the backbenches. Boris is enough of a bruiser to get his policy through Parliament, though the Treasury had

better have done its sums correctly, as the legislation will come under merciless scrutiny. This is the very stuff of politics. When it comes to a general election, though, nobody is

invincible. A MESSAGE FROM THEARTICLE _We are the only publication that’s committed to covering every angle. We have an important contribution to make, one that’s needed now more than ever,

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