Ukip Event Election 2017

I wanted to talk about protecting older people.

The Conservative plan to confiscate assets pound for pound from elderly

people to pay for their social care is the worst and stupid public

policy proposal of recent years, and the nastiest too, in effect, if not

in intention. It cannot be allowed to be implemented in its current

form. The Prime Minister is effectively proposing a 100%

inheritance tax on assets over ?100,000 for those unlucky enough to

develop a debilitating, long-term condition that requires domiciliary

care, such as dementia or acute arthritis, for instance. Every ?1

spent on care for these and fortunate people will be claimed

back from either, at the time they receive it, or from their estate

when they die. Now, most policies that intrude on personal finances

concern tens of pounds, such as insurance tax rises, for instance,

or hundreds of pounds at most, such as Ukip's excellent proposals to cut

the cost of living, saving households ?400 a year by taking

taxes off domestic energy and other measures. But this Tory death tax is

in an altogether different league. It could involve taking tens of

thousands or even hundreds of thousands of pounds out of someone's

estate, if they have been an lucky enough to suffer an extended,

debilitating condition later life. Damian Green seems to feel he is

qualified to tell people how much is reasonable for them to pass on to

their children, but the financial exposure the Tories are leaving

millions of elderly people is not reasonable at all. In fact, this is

a Russian roulette approach to paying for social care, and the

abrogation of government responsibility. It makes a mockery

of the claims of Mrs May and Nick Ahad advisors to be running a

communitarian Conservative administration. Just consider

typical house prices in parts of the country, particularly but not

exclusively in southern England. In Dagenham, for example, average house

prices are too good ?95,000. In Thurrock, ?338,000. In Ramsgate,

210,000. In Epping, more than ?500,000. Homeowners requiring

domiciliary social care are typically people who have paid off

their mortgages and therefore owed all or nearly all of the value of

the house, so in these ordinary Ingolstadt was that I have listed,

anything from 110,000-400,000 will be exposed to the Tory death tax.

The Prime Minister seems to wish to avoid scrutiny on heavyweight

political programmes in this election. She went on the One Show

recently. If she sticks to this policy, her next appearance should

be on Total Wipe-out, because that is what she is planning to do to the

estates of many elderly people. The Conservatives have created a cult of

the leader under Mrs May, but if they persist with this policy in its

current form, they will soon find out that this is not North Korea.

The British public free thinkers who do not take kindly to being treated

like fools. Older voters in particular are not going to

brainwashed into voting for Kim Yong-may and against their own

interest in such a scale. It is often said that when there is weak

opposition, the danger of bad government escalates, and that is

what we are seeing with the Tory death tax. Mrs May's Tories think

they can do what they like. This policy is not just a dementia tax,

it is effectively a tax on all forms of debilitating disease and

infirmity that need an elderly person to need social care.

Every extra week they live will lead to a further loss of equity and what

they can hang onto their children. This will undoubtedly lead to an

extra psychological toll on people already with disease. At the extreme

end of the spectrum it's likely to make some elderly people feel

regretful to still be alive. The Tory policy will also pour some

specific knowledge -- anomalies and consequences... What happens, for

instance, if a grown-up child is sharing the house but working

full-time? Does the house gets sold immediately on the death of the

elderly person? If so, that would render someone homeless just as they

have lost a parent, or if not, it will lead to anomalies and sculpture

of the avoidance. If this scheme is implemented in its present form, it

will create a whole new tax avoidance industry, with elderly

people piling intellect to release schemes and being given incentives

to go on spending sprees to get the remaining value of their assets down

under ?100,000. The message from government would be, don't be

successful, and don't be financially responsible either. Another even

more serious perverse outcome could be that people who need social care

refused to accept it and try and model through in order to preserve

their estate. With the inevitable result they suffer far more falls

and other accidents around the home, which then necessitate long and

expensive hospital stays or even bring about their premature death.

This is a devastating death tax dreamt up on the back of an envelope

and apparently winging its way to the Tory manifesto without

consultation with expert opinion, the Cabinet or even the ministers in

charge of the policy area in government. It doesn't have to be

this way, word governments to make better and different choices on

public spending. What is needed first is an immediate and

substantial injection of money into the social care system. Because Ukip

is prepared to cut unjustified public spending on the Barnett

formula, HS2 and overseas aid, we are able to offer just such a

financial boost, and will do so when we set out our manifesto on

Wednesday. But longer term, we also need an agreed way forward for

social care to ensure that risk is fairly pooled and builds our fairly

paid. Possible solutions range from a national care service, as set out

by Andy Burnham some years ago, to insurance policies and products that

people can be encouraged to invest in. The Andy Burnham route may have

something to commend it if the public could be assured the

resources of a national care service funded out of tax revenue could be

protected against freeloading, for instance by new arrivals from other

countries. I'm afraid that hurdle would not be cleared if Labour were

in government, because Labour has a reputation for being generous to a

fault with other people's money. Were I in the shoes of the Tories

today, the first thing I would do would be to recognise that Denis

Healey's law of holes is now in play. For the uninitiated, I should

explain this law is very concise and simply state in regard to a hole,

when you are in one, stop digging. Declaring financial war and millions

of retired people who spent working life being responsible and building

up assets does not amount to compassionate conservatism. It

amounts betrayal. So I offer this advice to team Teresa Lu. Why don't

you at least offer people a meaningful choice? That is after all

what conservatism used to be about. So why not give people an option of

chipping in to a voluntary social care costs insurance system run by

government from say the age of 50? If people pay in and then need care,

they are covered and should not be charged a penny. If, however, they

have chosen not to pay in, then at least you would have the semblance

of an argument for reclaim the costs from estates after death. If you did

this, you could even claim to be adding to your manifesto proposal

rather than abounding in it altogether. -- abandoning it.

Therefore sparing the blushes of Tarquin without proper stress

testing or scrutiny. One could tell from the demeanour of Tory ministers

sent out to bat for this policy on the political programmes yesterday,

that they knew they were on a loser. So far the conservative newspapers

have not really got stuck into the policy with full figure. The ones

that care about their readers will do so this week. Because it is an

unforgivable attack on the -- responsible and hard-working people.

My message to all those who may be hit by the Tory policy but would

never eat vote for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour, is simple. Ask yourself what

has been the best way to influence the Conservative Party's behaviour

and policies in the recent past? And the answer is obvious. By voting

Ukip, or at least threatening to vote Ukip, look how it worked on

Brexit, look how it is working on grammar schools. So if I were in

your shoes, I would tell Tory campaigners on the doorstep that you

are going to vote Ukip for a common-sense and fairer approach.

And if you do that, there is a strong possibility this policy will

be ditched altogether, or at least greatly modified by the end of the

week. I want to turn briefly to the second leg of the Tory attack on the

elderly, on the issue of winter fuel allowance. The Conservatives tell us

they will means tested but will not say at what income level people will

lose it. Pensioners can be forgiven for suspecting that vast majority of

them would no longer be eligible. The Tories have claimed to be making

a principled case against Universalism in this area. And for

replacing it with an assessment of need. So how come the very next day

after unveiling the plan, the Prime Minister was helping Ruth Davidson

to launch a Scottish Tory manifesto that placed to keep the allowance

for all pensioners north of the border. --? This is yet another

example of the English and indeed the wells being treated as

second-class citizens within the UK. There is simply no good reason why a

millionaire pensioner in Edinburgh should receive an allowance of up to

?300 million -- three to pay full interview will, while pensioners on

modest incomes in Essex get nothing. It is the Barnett formula which

leads to public spending in Scotland being ?1700 per head higher than it

is in England. That is what is behind this. It is another

vindication of the Ukip policy of dumping that formula and replacing

it with a needs -based funding system instead. So Mrs May's social

care plan is not conservative and her winter fuel allowance is not a

humanist. Apart from that, I'm sure everything is going fine on the

Conservative and Unionist campaign. Thank you.

Any questions. Does it matter if you win your seat or your party wins

anything at all? I think you may be referring to the point Paul Nuttall

made on the television yesterday, which was simply that Ukip has shown

it is able to influence the course of politics in Britain without MPs.

And indeed one could say that under the current first past the post

system, it is proved to date easier for Ukip to get the United Kingdom

out of the European Union than it has together MPs elected to the

House of Commons. But we hope to change that in this election. We are

not expecting an across the board level of voting to match that of

2015, but we do believe we are very much more successfully targeting the

areas where we are very strong without actually specifying the

ranking of are target seats. Do you think comments like that are

helpful in terms of getting the vote out? That it doesn't matter

necessarily if you have no MPs? I wouldn't say it doesn't matter. It

is this the better for Ukip to be represented in the House of Commons

as well as to command the support of hundreds of thousands of millions of

people as well. We're just making the point that one of the key ways

that we have worked in recent years has been frankly to scare the

Conservative Party in particular when they step out of line too

badly. And that is why I am inviting older people who get knocked up this

week by Conservative campaigners, if enough of you say, we are thinking

of voting Ukip over this policy, I don't see it lasting beyond next

weekend. Harry, you seem amused.

Do you have any reaction to the news that the Commonwealth are sending

election monitors from Australia and Mauritius to oversee the election?

Is that something you welcome? I think our electoral system has a lot

of problems around postal voting on demand in some areas. In some

inner-city areas I think there have been problems in the past with

intimidation of voters. And I think the Electoral Commission have

recognised that certain features of the way elections are run,

particularly in inner-city areas, are pretty disgraceful. I think

there is no room for complacency at all. And if we have visitors from

other countries to have a look and monitor, I think that is quite

welcome. It doesn't necessarily mean that their own democratic systems

are above criticism. I think it is perfectly welcome. Let's have as

many eyes on how things are done as possible. Yeah. Go on.

If former leader of the Lib Dems was on the radio this morning, waffling

on for about half an hour and taking up so much space that he was even

cutting his own throat in hand... It was waffle. It is typical of the

BBC. They keep pushing the Lib Dems all the time.

As you know, I have had some criticisms of the BBC over recent

years. We have got a policy of scrapping the licence fee. But I

think during an election, they are quite entitled to put on politicians

of lots of different parties. And I don't particularly see that

increased exposure of Nick Clegg to the masses is going to harm the

prospects of Ukip or indeed any other party at all. I think it is a

great democratic festival, a general election, so the more Nick Clegg,

the better. Anyone else?

Thank you very much then. Thanks. The 2017 general election is upon

us. Everyday BBC Parliament will have the key speeches from the