The recent discussion about the funding of social care for the elderly provides a great example of politicians attempting to be 'all things to all men'. Even though they have no money to play with, our leaders still want to pretend they can provide us with everything we desire, in this case largely free care when we are old and unable to look after ourselves.
That universal free care is a nonsense is abundantly clear to those of us with a brain who are not politicians. From a political perspective, however, such a standpoint is unacceptable and some effort has to be made to at least dress up the system so as to appear to be providing the usual political nonsense of 'something for nothing'.
Ignoring all of the current chat, there is one basic issue that no politician seems willing to tackle. It is the notion that we should all be allowed to pass on whatever wealth we accumulate during our lifetimes to our children and should not have to spend our savings on care homes and the like. Why this has become such an accepted norm is a mystery to me.
During our working lives, we save if we can. Some of these savings should be directed towards a pension for our old age; if anything is left, that should be available to pay for the social care services we need in our old age. There is no reason at all why we should expect the state to pay for our care while we pass on our savings - house and all - to the next generation. Any such arrangement is a ludicrous nonsense. For the state to pay for those who cannot pay for themselves is one thing; for it to be expected to pay for those who are well able to pay for themselves is ridiculous.
Such logic, of course, does not find favour with politicians as it implies telling voters that they will not get something they want are, these days, see as a right. With any luck, one day there'll be a political leader with the balls to do what's right rather than what's expedient, but don't expect any of today's bunch of liberal socialist do-gooders to take the lead.
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