The Mayor of Greater Manchester Andy Burnham is urging the Labour leader Sir Kier Starmer to present alternative plan for social care
Writing in his column for the London Evening Standard Burnham said his party should seize the opportunity to say what it would do instead and that it was not enough for his party simply to criticise, and that alternatives must be produced.
“My advice to my party would be not to leave it too long before presenting one. Criticism of the Tory plan alone won’t cut through unless we say what we would do,” he wrote.
Burnham, who was the Health Secretary in Gordon Brown’s Governmemt said would also introduce “a range of wealth taxes – such as a higher rate of capital gains tax”.
He added: “Here’s Labour’s opportunity to end this injustice once and for all and extend the NHS principle to social care. It should create a National Care Service. Labour should ask all older people to contribute, whether they need care or not.”
“I am sure that part of the political calculation in Downing Street is that university-educated millennials in big cities like London and Manchester are unlikely to vote Tory anyway, so why worry? But this is where they are making a major mistake. I’m sure there are millions of grandparents up and down the country who are feeling very uncomfortable with the idea of their children and grandchildren being asked to pay for this.” he said of the plans on social care announced earlier this week
