Thanks Daily Mail!

[jimslip]

Here's a story to cheer you up (Unless you are David Johnson). About a year ago I was having a swim and afterwards, in the cafe, found myself reading an article in the Daily Mail, on the plight of old people with Alzheimer's and how after working hard all their lives, were having to sell their homes to finance their nursing home fees.

At the time, under glorious New Labour, if you were on the old "Bennys", disability allowance or basically too fucking lazy to work, you naturally got your nursing fees paid for. After all, they argued, "All property is theft, so these greedy cunts who have scrimped and saved all their lives, to pay for a house to leave their kids, are fucking Tories, so let 'em rot in Hell!" or words to that effect.

Anyway, I digress. In the Mail article, it explained that people have a legal right to claim nursing home fees back in the case of Alzheimer's and that primary care trusts were doing everything in their power not to pay up. The Daily Mail gave details of law firms that were fighting these bastards.

Shortly afterwards, I heard of a family that had had to sell their parents home to finance their father's Alzheimer's nursing care. The family were penniless and the money from the house sale was dwindling fast. The nursing home costs were ?1000 + per WEEK! I told them of the story and the details and yesterday one of them phoned me, delightedly, to say they had got a load of money back and could now keep their father in the home, rather than him being thrown out on the streets.

So, don't let anyone tell you that you were safe under the Welfare State with New Labour. You were only safe if you were firmly ensconced in the Welfare System, otherwise YOU WERE POTENTIALLY FUCKED like these people!

You see under New Labour, if you worked hard and paid your taxes, your function was to PROVIDE for others "Not so fortunate", you were not expected to actually want anything back!God forbid!

Anyway, I felt really good, that a bit of advice and help had resulted in such a major victory for a poor, hard working family!

[Cue, DJ to piss all over my heartwarming story and tell me how I actually imagined the whole thing and everything was wonderful for all under New Labour and the family to whom I refer are actually Tory secret agents!]

[David Johnson]

"Cue, DJ to piss all over my heartwarming story and tell me how I actually imagined the whole thing and everything was wonderful for all under New Labour and the family to whom I refer are actually Tory secret agents!"

Embarrassingly juvenile in tone, Jim. As if it is only under Labour that pensioners in the UK have suffered! Grow up, for Christ's sake.

As far as I am concerned how old age pensioners are treated in this country is a disgrace and has been a disgrace under both Labour and Tory governments. OAPs have amongst the lowest pensions in the G20. All political parties need to come up with a sensible approach to:

Funding pensions and increasing the state pension.
Funding residential care so that it is free for all at the time they need it.

If we can find ?800 billion to bail out the banks, it shouldnt be beyond the wit of political parties to come up with a satisfactory solution to this shambles.

THis issue has been dealt with shamefully with both Labour and Tory going in for stupid point scoring - the Tories and their "Labour death tax" for example.

Cheers
D

[Alex L]

A truly heartwarming story for a Sunday morning.

A salutary lesson for those who mock the the Daily Mail.

[jimslip]

Well you surprise me David, to state that hardworking folk have been fucked over by all parties! Even at the hands of New Labour!

Well said, maybe there's some hope after all!

[Deano!]

Well done Slimjip. And you did it for free - something just about every socialist I've ever met wouldn't dream of doing.

The same level of advice provided to the professionally unemployed would take a government funded staff of 8 (3 of which would be away on 'stress leave' on any given day) about 2 months to come up with at a cost of 9000 pounds.

[David Johnson]

"Well you surprise me David, to state that hardworking folk have been fucked over by all parties! Even at the hands of New Labour!

Well said, maybe there's some hope after all!"

Jimbo I have made this sort of comment on a number of occasions e.g. I believe

1. Tony Blair is a war criminal and deceived the British people.
2. Like all parties Labour did nowhere near enough to help oaps.
3. In some aspects of the NHS Blair moved towards privatisation. I am against privatisation of the NHS.
4. The Labour government did a piss poor job of regulating the finance sector, supporting the manufacturing sector, closing down tax avoidance loopholes and tax evasion.
5. They could have done a lot more to incentivise work as opposed to poeple being in a benefits trap.
6. They went too far on the erosion of civil liberties.

A separate question. Despite all of the above, would you prefer a Labour government to a Tory or Tory/Lb Dem one?

For me, the answer is Yes, because the alternative is even worse which is what I suspect most of us are going to find out this year.

Cheers
D

[mrchapel]

TL dr but old folks having to sell their homes to pay for care homes happened under the last tory government too.

[David Johnson]

Both Labour and Tory governments have done a piss poor job at supporting individuals who have worked for most of their life, saved money and then found themselves out of a job for no fault of their own.

Correct me if I am wrong, my understanding is that if you have over ?16k in savings you will struggle to get income benefit and all the other means tested benefits.

Secondly with regard to the Job Seekers Allowance if you have saved you can only claim it for about 6 months on the contribution based JSA before you get slung off that. And it is the princely sum of ?60+ a week as far as I am aware.

I realise that it is very easy to come up with demands that individuals with savings should get some help and that residential care should be free for all as part of the NHS. The difficulty part is how is it funded.

Having said that, this is the sort of stuff we expect elected politicians to come up with a half way sensible strategy for.

Cheers
D