Theresa May has performed an extraordinary U-turn by watering down her “dementia tax”, just four days after making it the centrepiece of her election manifesto. she has defended making changes to the Tories’ social care pledge as critics called it a “manifesto meltdown”.
A clearly flustered Prime Minister announced the Conservatives would pledge to introduce a cap on lifetime care costs, following widespread protests that more families would be forced to sell the homes of pensioners paying for their care.
The seemingly unprecedented reversal on a clear manifesto pledge comes after she threw out plans for the cap just last Thursday, insisting it was not necessary to protect older people from catastrophic care costs.
Thus far she has not made a commitment to the level of the cap on dementia tax. Thus affecting the many thousands of wills and the laws around inheritance.
Tory plans for social care which unfolded has provided an unexpected boost to Labour. And Theresa May could very well still win one as well. But she has let the country catch a glimpse of the whites of her eyes. She might yet live to regret it.
