Theresa May was forced to backtrack on a central part of her policy manifesto on Monday, promising to cap the costs of social care for the elderly in a bid to contain a growing backlash against what's already been dubbed her "dementia tax".



Just four days after the policy was announced, the prime minister responded to a weekend of negative headlines and narrowing opinion polls by announcing that a consultation on the plans would include an "absolute limit" on what people had to pay for their social care. May repeatedly insisted this was merely a "clarification" to the original proposal, even though the cap did not appear in the manifesto.

Nothing has changed,” the prime minister said. “Nothing has changed. We are offering a long-term solution for the sustainability of social care for the future.”



On the defensive for the first time since calling the election a month ago, the Conservative leader appeared peevish at a speaking event in Wrexham, a Tory target seat, as she batted away persistent questions from reporters, about whether she had undermined her own claim to provide "strong and stable leadership".

May sought to pin the reversal on Jeremy Corbyn, accusing the Labour leader of making “fake claims” about her social care plans. Labour were falsely claiming that “families would lose their homes” as a result of the social care reform, and she was setting the record straight by clarifying how it would work, the prime minister insisted.



Labour did jump on the policy after Thursday, portraying it in advertisements, social media postings and interviews as part of a three-pronged attack on pensioners — along with the means-testing of winter fuel allowances and the end to the "triple lock" on state pensions. But the phrase "dementia tax" appears not to have originated with Labour. Fraser Nelson, editor of the Spectator, the conservative magazine, said it was one of his writers, Will Heaven, a former Ministry of Justice speechwriter, who coined the term.

In her most bruising press conference since the campaign began, May was accused by journalists of cynically backtracking after seeing that the policy had gone down poorly with elderly voters.

One described May's policy platform as a "manifesto of chaos". Another asked if she had "buckled under pressure", and suggested May was now introducing a cap in a "cynical attempt to stop voters leaving you in droves".

Michael Crick, of Channel 4 News, said it was unprecedented for a political party to do a U-turn on its manifesto before an election. Crick contrasted May with Margaret Thatcher, who famously declared she was "not for turning".

Clearly irritated by the line of questioning, May shook her head repeatedly and insisted the substance of the policy remained exactly the same — she was merely issuing a clarification.

In their manifesto, the Conservatives said they would require individuals who need care to pay for it from the value of their home, with only the last £100,000 protected. The policy sparked a backlash over the weekend, with anecdotal evidence suggesting it had gone down badly with voters on the doorstep in the Conservatives’ traditional heartlands.

Opinion polls taken since the manifesto launch in Thursday showed Labour closing the gap, in some polls to within 9 points, although the Conservatives still had a healthy lead. Labour, the Liberal Democrats and UKIP jumped on the policy, and the term “dementia tax” began to stick. The Bow Group, a Conservative-supporting think tank, described it as “the biggest stealth tax in history” and predicted there would be a huge backlash from Tory voters when they realised the implications of the policy.

Damian Green, the work and pensions secretary, was sent out on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday to defend the policy, insisting that the Conservatives would stick to it. He did not mention that the changes would be accompanied by a cap on absolute costs.

By mid-Monday morning it was clear that party leaders were rattled by the reaction. News of a reversal emerged from a source that will have irritated May: a tweet by George Osborne, the former chancellor, whom she sacked from cabinet and is now editor of the Evening Standard newspaper.

“U-turn coming on social care,” Osborne tweeted. “There will be a cap. Read today’s @EveningStandard for the details.” </s> Theresa May has been accused of “chaos, confusion and indecision” after announcing a U-turn on her plans to make people pay more for social care just days after they were first announced.



The prime minister battled throughout Monday to defend her decision to put in place an “absolute limit” on the amount that people would have to pay despite no mention of the idea in her party’s manifesto, published on Thursday.

Theresa May's responses to Andrew Neil's five toughest questions Read more

She also failed to set out the level at which the cap could be set, with Tory sources making clear there would be no further details before the general election.

In a combative primetime BBC1 interview with Andrew Neil, May insisted the shift in position had not been driven by enduring days of backlash against proposals, dubbed a “dementia tax”, to ask the elderly to contribute more towards care.

Instead, she hit out at the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, accusing him of trying “to sneak into No 10 by playing on the fears of older and vulnerable people” – and said the plan was always to flesh out the policy through a government green paper.

“Nothing has changed from the principles on social care policy that we set out on our manifesto,” May said, arguing that urgent action was needed because of the ageing population. “Just one figure: in 10 years’ time, there will be 2 million more people over the age of 75. Now, our social care system will collapse if we don’t do anything about it.”

Under the Tory proposals, people needing social care at home would have to pay for it until the value of their assets – including their property – reached £100,000. The party also promised that a family home would never need to be sold in a person’s lifetime, with the costs, initially uncapped, instead recouped after death.

May added that this key plank of the Tory social care policy as well as the other controversial decision to limit winter fuel allowance to the poorest would remain in place.

Team May takes a hit to dampen 'dementia tax' backlash Read more

“I’m not going to bury my head in the sand, I’m not going to play politics with it, which is what Jeremy Corbyn is doing,” she told Neil about the controversial decisions.

May insisted the fresh proposal for a cap, which came after days of pressure from Labour and the Liberal Democrats and private concerns from Conservative MPs about the social care package, was not a U-turn but a clarification. “We have not rewritten the manifesto. The principles on which we have based our social care policy remain absolutely the same,” she said.

However, the idea of a cap on care costs – as recommended by Sir Andrew Dilnot following a major inquiry for the previous coalition government – was explicitly rejected in both the Tory manifesto and a briefing to journalists about the policy.

Moreover, the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, said last week his party was “being completely explicit in our manifesto that we’re dropping [the cap]”, and cabinet ministers Damian Green and Boris Johnson defended the social care package in broadcast interviews on Sunday.

The turnaround comes after the government’s controversial U-turn earlier this year over a budget proposal to raise national insurance for the self-employed and May’s change of heart over holding an early general election.

Labour’s Barbara Keeley, the shadow social care minister, told the Guardian: “What people need is certainty, so they can know how their future care needs will be met. What the Tories are delivering is chaos, confusion and indecision over the funding of care. The Tories were going to introduce a cap on care costs in April 2016, then in April 2020 and now they are talking of a green paper, which is another delaying tactic.”

The Lib Dem leader, Tim Farron, said: “As Theresa May has made clear herself, nothing has changed and her heartless dementia tax remains in place. This is a cold and calculated attempt to pull the wool over people’s eyes.”

Conservative sources argued that the new policy was different to Dilnot’s recommendation, which paid for a cap through general taxation, a move they said was not fair for “ordinary working families”. Instead, this policy will use money raised from the new means tests for social care and winter fuel allowance to fund an upper limit.

The original policy in the manifesto caused anger because payments after death could eat into the inheritance of offspring whose parents were unlucky enough to suffer from a condition – such as dementia – in which reliance on social care is inevitable. The phrase “dementia tax” was used to highlight the difference in care for those reliant on social care with conditions such as Alzheimer’s and those with illnesses such as cancer that qualify for NHS treatment.

The Guardian view on the social care debacle: weak and wobbly | Editorial Read more

Dilnot himself said it was “perfectly reasonable” to charge people with bigger houses higher inheritance tax, but there was a moral case for a cap when it came to social care costs which can run into the tens of thousands or more. “What does not seem to be a reasonable position is that we should have an inheritance tax that’s much higher if you happen to be one of the one people in 10 who’s unlucky enough to have dementia,” he told Sky News.

He welcomed the move by the Tories, saying it would provide “a great deal of reassurance to people” but urged the government not to set the cap much higher than the £72,000 planned by David Cameron’s government.

Earlier, the prime minister used a speech to launch the Tory Welsh manifesto in Wrexham to reveal her party’s change of heart. “Since my manifesto was published, the proposals have been subject to fake claims made by Jeremy Corbyn. The only things he has left to offer in this campaign are fake claims, fear and scaremongering,” she said.



“So I want to make a further point clear. This manifesto says that we will come forward with a consultation paper, a government green paper. And that consultation will include an absolute limit on the amount people have to pay for their care costs.”

May immediately faced a string of difficult questions from reporters, with one saying the announcement amounted to a “manifesto of chaos”. A testy prime minister responded by insisting that there was always going to be a consultation and the “basic principles” of the policy were unchanged.

“Nothing has changed, nothing has changed,” she added tersely, raising her voice when asked towards the end of the session if anything else in the Tory manifesto was likely to be altered. May accused a Guardian journalist of borrowing a term from the Labour party by using “dementia tax” in a question.

Corbyn said the Tories had not given any level for the cap. “They haven’t explained to the millions of people, who are desperately worried at the moment about what kind of care they are going to get in the future, desperately worried for children as well about how their parents are going to be looked after,” he said. </s> LONDON (Reuters) - Prime Minister Theresa May slapped down her foreign minister on Tuesday after he demanded more funding for Britain’s public health service, telling him any discussion of money saved from Brexit should be kept private.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May walks through the Wildfowl and Wetland Trust's (WWT) grounds ahead of a speech to launch the government's environment plan at the London Wetland Centre in west London, Britain, January 11, 2018. REUTERS/Dan Kitwood/Pool/Files

Boris Johnson, whose promises that Britain’s departure from the European Union would boost funds for the National Health Service helped persuade many voters to back Brexit, raised his demands at a regular meeting of her top ministers after publicly calling for an extra 100 million pounds ($140 million) a week.

But the response was swift. May, trying to reassert her authority, said any money saved from Brexit would be spent on her priorities, including health, and that ministers should not air discussions outside her cabinet meetings.

“The prime minister and a large number of cabinet ministers made the point that cabinet discussions should take place in private,” her spokesman told reporters, describing the hour-long discussion on the NHS as “constructive”.

“As regards the future, and how the return of any EU contribution would be spent, the prime minister reminded cabinet that the government has consistently said that we will spend money on our priorities such as housing, schools and the NHS.”

May is under pressure over the state of the health service from the opposition Labour Party, which says healthcare is being put “recklessly” at risk by ministers unable to tackle bed shortages and thousands of cancelled operations.

Under fire from some lawmakers in her own party for lacking direction on some of the most pressing concerns in Britain, May is also trying to keep the warring factions of her cabinet of top ministers united as she negotiates Brexit.

But divisions over the so-called Brexit dividend - the funds that will be freed up when Britain stops paying into EU coffers - are deepening, with the ministers for health, education and defence and others bidding for more funds for their departments.

“DULL DULL DULL”

Shortly after Johnson made his demand, finance minister Philip Hammond fought back by saying he had already increased payments to the NHS. May has repeatedly said that funding is at record levels.

“Mr Johnson is the foreign secretary,” Hammond told reporters in Brussels.

“I gave the health secretary an extra 6 billion pounds at the recent budget and we’ll look at departmental allocations again at the spending review when that takes place.”

The row is yet another headache for May, whose weakness since losing her party’s majority at an election last June was underlined by a botched reshuffle of her top team of ministers earlier this month.

With the Conservatives increasingly concerned that Labour is setting the political agenda in Britain by focusing on health, housing and education, many members of the ruling party say it needs to show more clearly what they hold to be the benefits of Brexit.

Johnson and other Brexit supporters said during the campaign for the 2016 referendum on leaving the European Union that Britain pays 350 million pounds a week to the bloc and promised to spend the money on the NHS instead if Britain voted to leave.

The figure was challenged by critics who said it did not rerlect Britain’s rebate and payments made into Britain by the EU.

Mindful of that promise, some Conservatives are calling for the government to increase funding.

Britian's Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson arrives at the Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on Security and Stability on the Korean Peninsula in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, January 16, 2018. REUTERS/Ben Nelms/Files

“We have to deliver Brexit and deliver for the NHS,” Andrew Bridgen, a pro-Brexit lawmaker, told Reuters.

Others went further, saying May had to do a lot more to win over younger voters and challenge Labour’s leftist leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has a loyal following in many cities.

“They must have really sound reasons to vote Conservative. We really need to get on with this #wherestheboldandbrave sofaritsdulldulldull,” Conservative lawmaker Nicholas Soames said on Twitter. </s> Gresford — British Prime Minister Theresa May amended an unpopular campaign proposal on Monday for elderly care just days after unveiling it, prompting accusations that she could not be relied upon in Brexit negotiations.

She came under fire following a speech in Wales, where her Conservatives are hoping to make historic gains against the opposition Labour party in the June 8 general election.

In the speech she announced a cap on the amount people would be asked to pay, which was in response to a backlash against proposals in her party’s manifesto on paying for elderly care. "We are proposing the right funding model for social care. We will make sure there’s an absolute limit on what people need to pay," she told supporters in Gresford, Wales. May said "nothing has changed" when questioned by journalists on the announcement.

The initial proposal did not include an upper limit, leaving it open to accusations that people could be forced to use their assets to pay for care. She did not detail how much the limit on elderly care would be.

Labour said her change of heart had thrown her campaign into "chaos and confusion", just four days after the Conservative Party manifesto was published.

"You can’t trust the Tories — if this is how they handle their own manifesto, how will they cope with the Brexit negotiations?" said Andrew Gwynne, Labour’s election co-ordinator.
British Prime Minister Theresa May faces backlash after accusations emerge that the Conservatives allegedly planned on reducing social welfare spending.