As the saying goes, you can't take it with you, so a levy on estates is a fair way to fund Andy Burnham's free social care revolution. I tell my own children they would be extremely lucky to be charged inheritance tax, because it would mean they were sharing upwards of £500,000, and 95% leave less or absolutely nothing.
Adding a 10% social care surcharge – a rate Burnham toyed with 16 years ago – would still leave the family inheriting money they never earned. Crucially, it would be a far larger sum than spending all my savings and selling the Costa del Tyne house to pay for exorbitantly expensive care.
Critics from Reform, waving skeletons with HMRC tax notices, and Conservatives opposing any tax for free care are proving empty vessels make most noise. For many families, paying after death would be cheaper and guarantee most of an estate survives to pass on, instead of an older person losing virtually everything above £23,250 in England.
Alternatives to an inheritance levy
Depleted savings and lost houses would not happen in Burnham's new caring world, but there are alternatives. Remodelling private pension subsidies to raise tax relief from 20% to 25% for lower and middle earners, while cutting it from 40% for higher earners, could generate up to £20 billion, one study says.
Equalising Capital Gains Tax with Income Tax could raise £12 billion, according to Wes Streeting. There is also a £10 billion 2% annual wealth tax on the 1,000 super-rich with assets above £100 million, or the £24 billion version backed by Patriotic Millionaires UK for those with more than £10 million.
Creating a National Care Service alongside the NHS to provide free care where needed would be a landmark achievement. We will see how radical the Prime Minister is against opponents who cry "death tax" but offer no solutions to people going without care or losing savings and homes.
Farage and Reform past their peak
While Nigel Farage was busy arguing with a bin in Clacton and facing mounting financial troubles, he glimpsed a grim future for himself, despite never setting foot in Greater Manchester. The gloss is truly wiped from Farage, with Reform down but not out, a party past its peak.
Andy Burnham's resurrected Labour Party is leading in some opinion polls, and the Greater Manchester Mayor contest showed why tactical voting and the far-right enemy Restore may end Farage's No10 dream. The most significant figure wasn't Mayor Bev Craig's 47.1%–21.0% first-round lead over Reform but the run-off 66.3%–33.7% lapping, as many Greens, Lib Dems and some moderate Tories voted Labour to stop Farage.
Come the next general election, when we put a single X on the ballot paper, tactical voting might be the widest ever (I have voted tactically in the past), with people more motivated by who they definitely don't want rather than who they do. That, plus racist Restore's concerning 9% in polls, is why a slipping Farage could be spending more time with other people's money.
Badenoch loses energy on net zero
Kemi Badenoch has been accused of peddling lies about North Sea oil and gas while Britain and Europe burn, appearing a fossil fool on the wrong side of net zero arguments. Even traditional Tories, horrified at the world going up in flames, are turning against a leader purging her party of politicians embracing a cheaper, cleaner, more secure renewable future.
Tory energy spokeswoman Claire Coutinho admitted that increasing North Sea output won't necessarily knock a penny off bills, while the Uplift transition group destroyed Badenoch's highly misleading pollution arguments. Two-thirds of Britons still back the goal to reach net zero by 2050 or earlier.
So, Energy Secretary Miatta Fahnbulleh wins the arguments, and it will be fossil fools like Badenoch and Reform who are burned.
Braverman accused of scaremongering
Nearly all of the 60,000 who entered Spain's enclave of Ceuta from Morocco and returned over the border didn't stop twice-sacked Home Secretary Suella Braverman from scaremongering. The claim from a Reform Tory that "make no mistake, these men are on their way to the UK right now" was fundamentally dishonest.
People can't travel from Ceuta into mainland Spain without a passport or permission, and experience tells us only a tiny proportion may risk travelling across Europe to the Channel moat. Her post reminds me of Farage's 2016 Brexit "Breaking Point" poster of Syrian refugees on Slovenia's border, with MP Jo Cox killed by a far-right murderer on the same day.
Does Braverman care about the truth and consequences of her words? Or does she only crave power, unconcerned by consequences? The latter is suggested by her "invasion" rhetoric.
Going Up
Bitter beaten rivals now pretending Labour's new Mayor Bev Craig's comfortable Greater Manchester conquest wasn't remarkable can't even kid themselves when a month ago Farage scented Reform victory. Long live the Queen of the North!
Going Down
If the Tory Party infiltrated a double agent into Reform to destroy their Hard Right competitor from the inside, he would look and sound very much like Robert "Honest Bob" Jenrick, a former EU champion and failed Immigration Minister as credible as a 19p coin.
