Latest updates: Labour leader intensifies attack on the government’s social care plan, calling it the latest in a ‘string of broken promises’ from Tories
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Good morning. The main political focus this morning is the response, in the UK and France, to the death of at least 27 people trying to cross the Channel yesterday on a small vote. But my colleague Damien Gayle is covering all the developments around that story on a separate live blog, and so largely I will be leaving that to him. You can read the blog here.
In other developments, Keir Starmer has instensified his attack on the government’s social care plans. At PMQs yesterday he condemned them as a “working class dementia tax”, but today he has given an interview to the Northern Echo focusing on the idea that they particularly isadvantage people in the north of England. He told the paper:
How does someone in Redcar, where the average house price is £133,000, or Bishop Auckland, where it is £125,000, realistically raise the £86,000 without selling their house? I think most people would say ‘of course I’m going to have to sell my house to pay that sort of money’.
You will have to defer the payment to have it taken away from your estate at the end of the exercise. If your house is worth £133,000 and you take £86,000 away, you are effectively depriving people of a significant amount of their inheritance.
