Here’s the reality from my own, current frontline experience. Hospital beds blocked by a failing or failed social care system. The no-longer acute needing to go to a nursing home, current waiting time 6-8 weeks; or to have a care package, which probably means 2 or 3 fifteen minute home visits a day, current waiting time 3-4 months. As with many of our current ills, the causes can be traced back to a previous Big Economic Experiment, when the care system was privatised at the end of the 80s, and all sorts, from (literally) builders to bankers took grants to become care home owners. The grants disappeared, big corporates moved in and made the whole thing unaffordable. So the whole thing now needs a much bigger and very much more radical rethink; which will come too late, alas, for many.
“Rachel Reeves may be forced to raise taxes”
Why did she/they (in the old sense) think that tinkering around with IHT and CGT would be enough to sort out the NHS; and the potholes; and…and the list goes on. My guess is that they asked the Treasury for a list of anything not involving income tax that they could get away with lightly, although they should already have learned from the winter fuel stuff that all publicity is not good publicity.