Editor’s blog Wednesday 28 April 2010: Burnham misleads BBC2 Daily Politics NHS hustings

Oh dear. Oh dear.

On what is already a dreadful day for Labour, with PM Gordon Brown calling a difficult voter “bigoted”, things got little better for The People's Party when Andy Burnham seriously misled the BBC2 Daily Politics health hustings.

You can find very roughly transcribed notes of the event (which was fairly good, overall) below.

The misleading arose in the discussion about social care. Burnham said that the Royal Commission report on long-term care in 1999 “couldn’t agree on a way forward”.

That is a complete untruth, as you can see here.

The two main recommendations from ‘With Respect To Old Age’ (the report of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care, chaired by Sir Stewart Sutherland), were very clear:
- The costs of long-term care should be split between living costs, housing costs and personal care. Personal care should be available after assessment, according to need and paid for from general taxation: the rest should be subject to a co-payment according to means.
- The Government should establish a National Care Commission to monitor trends, including demography and spending, ensure transparency and accountability in the system, represent the interests of consumers, and set national benchmarks, now and in the future.

Unambiguous. Not a hint of a sign of inability to agree.

There was an inability to agree – but it was in the Government’s response document, slipped out as an appendix to 2000’s