The PM took a relaxed view of farmers’ fears they may have to dispose of over 100,000 pigs because of abattoir worker shortages“If I may say so, the great hecatomb of pigs that you describe has not yet actually taken place. Let’s see what happens.” Bor…
National insurance hike to hit NHS and care staff with £900m tax bill
Exclusive: Tax rise will inflict ‘terrible’ financial toll on health and social care workers, analysis findsBoris Johnson’s national insurance hike to fund health and social care will hit NHS and care workers with a £900m tax bill, the Guardian can rev…
Boris Johnson is stealing Labour’s clothes? He’ll sell you a bridge too | Aditya Chakrabortty
Austerity for the poor, favours for the rich, and not a penny on frontline social care – this is truest blueNaughty Boris! You know the line and its intonation. There goes the prime minister, tearing into the tenets of Toryism with the same puppyish fe…
Archbishop of Canterbury criticises social care tax rise
Justin Welby says favouring wealthy pensioners over young and poor not a ‘people-centred policy’Boris Johnson’s plan to increase national insurance contributions to raise £12bn for the NHS and social care could pose a “serious problem” for low-income w…
The Guardian view on social care: a big deal with holes in it | Editorial
The boost to health and care spending is needed, but troubling details, and unfairness, remainIn 2019, in his first speech as prime minister, Boris Johnson promised to fix the crisis in social care “once and for all”. Two years later, a plan has arrive…
‘It’s unfair’: Stoke-on-Trent voters see social care tax rise as unjust but necessary
People in the newly Tory seat react to the national insurance hike with a mix of realism and resentment at the effect on the low-paidIn the former red wall seat of Stoke-on-Trent Central, which the Conservatives won for the first time in 2019 with a ma…
What has gone wrong with social care in England?
Boris Johnson is not the first to try to fix the problems that have made care costs unaffordable for manyWhether it is help with washing and dressing at home or long-term nursing support, most social care in England has never been automatically free at…
Pressure grows on Starmer to back tax on rich to pay for social care
Party and union figures urge new policy as Manchester mayor Andy Burnham tells Labour leader: taxing wealth is the fairest way The row over how to fund social care threatens to engulf Labour this weekend as Keir Starmer faces pressure from across the p…
‘Chaos’ in No 10 as Johnson finalises social care funding plan
Growing backlash from cabinet ministers and MPs after leaks about plan for national insurance riseBoris Johnson is expected to make a final decision over the weekend about whether to press ahead with his controversial social care funding plan, in the f…
The Guardian view on social care funding: fairness is the key | Editorial
A plan to split the proceeds of a national insurance rise between the NHS and social care could worsen intergenerational injusticeAn announcement on social care funding is imminent, with a national insurance rise the probable outcome. But what ought to…