The Economy: Tories and Corporates Cannot and Do Not Add Up

When it comes to the Economy it seems that Iain Dale continues to follow careless fact gathering with silly analysis and doctrinaire opinions. Here Iain claims a £39 Billion hole in our National budget per year. Treason! Yesterday morning that was. And like George Osborne on various media outlets Iain calls vaguely for deep and immediate public expenditure cuts.

In fact the £39 Billion total needs to be found over the next six years. Between 2009-10 and 2015-16. And in fact like hapless George before him Iain deserves to be ridiculed for his pathetic alarums. GOO was torn to shreds all day for his lack of a coherent alternative. He's such a feather lightweight.

Spookily £39 Billion is the per annum estimate from insurance group LV on the unpaid care received by the elderly. HERE. Given the vested interests of the Private Health insurance Market a health warning is needed here? However there is an interesting piece of head emptying on Labour List about Carer's Allowance and rather spuriously some alleged local democratic deficit in the People's Party.

In the course of a comment on this I reckoned that £200 Million per week would be needed to raise the Carers' Allowance to £250 per week and drop the means testing. That would be around £10 Billion a year. And that includes carers of every type, not just those for the elderly. Perhaps LV= went to the same school for scandalously bad statistics as Iain Dale?

UPDATE 15:52: Their workings are here. Essentially LV= charge out all contact between the elderly and their offspring at £8.27 an hour. Which is the going rate for personal care. Next time you visit your parents or receive your children as guests don't forget to draw up an appropriate invoice. Talk about the cost of everything and the value of nothing.