Rishi’s £2k boost for pensioners is a crumb of comfort for some but means little to those in care paying thousands

“WHY do you hate pensioners?” asked my fellow Loose Women panellist Janet Street Porter when PM Rishi Sunak sat beside us on the show a couple of weeks ago.

She then proceeded to hose him down with a few inconvenient facts and figures to back up her blunt question while the audience clapped its approval.

Perhaps their response precipitated Rishi’s promise this week of a forthcoming £2k a year “boost” for pensioners, or maybe it was in the pipeline already.

Either way, his claim that people must have “peace of mind and security in retirement” is a potential vote winner among the all-important, 12.6million people of pensionable age.

It’s a start but doesn’t go far enough. My mother was eight when the Second World War broke out and grew up on rations.

The experience never left her and fostered a “don’t spend what you don’t have” ethos that meant going without luxuries in favour of “saving for a rainy day”.

She started out as a stable girl, then became a secretary, then trained in her early 40s to become a teacher in the state sector.

A single parent to her only child (moi), I don’t recall her ever taking a day off and, though never stingy, she managed her money very carefully.

Even in her eighties, she would buy a cheaper bus ticket (with two changes) to visit a friend, rather than take the costlier direct train.

Now, with advanced dementia and specialist care needs beyond my capability, she is living in a residential facility close to my London home and I’m watching her hard-earned yet modest savings being rapidly drained by the eye-wateringly expensive fees.

According to 2023 figures, 63 per cent of residents in English care homes are state-funded and, because the homes need to be at near capacity to survive, cash-strapped local councils haggle the price of a place to make it cost-effective.

Meaning that it’s standard practice for the 37 per cent of self-funders like my mother to pay hundreds of pounds per week extra to make up the shortfall.

In other words, she’s being actively penalised for saving and is subsidising the local council so it can pay less for someone in the next room.

Where’s the fairness in that?

Skill and patience

I have no issue with my mother’s money being used to fund her care, but at the very least she should be charged the same rate as the state, particularly as the £86k cap on lifetime care costs promised in 2021 has now been pushed back to October 2025 . . . if it happens at all.

Plus, trying to get any Continuing Healthcare funding (CHC) beyond the bare minimum often involves months of legal wrangling and appeals.

And don’t even get me started on care staff wages.

It takes skill and immeasurable patience to deal with the often challenging demands of those living with dementia, and building a long-term relationship with residents is crucial.

Yet the low pay levels suggest it’s a job as transitory and undervalued as gap-year bar work. Shocking.

So while Rishi’s extra £2k a year is a crumb of comfort to those currently living independently, it means little to those who now have care needs and, after a lifetime of paying tax and saving, find themselves paying more than the state for exactly the same facilities and treatment.

In a nutshell, if you have savings above £23k and need a full-time care place, that extra £2k a year the Tories are making such a song and dance about will self-fund approximately a one to two-week stay.

LEVELLING Up Minister Michael Gove has announced he is stepping down as an MP at the forthcoming General Election.

Rumour has it that the first thing he’ll do with his new-found freedom is to hit the Strictly dance floor.

Great idea. Given that he’s done nearly 20 years at the perilous coalface of politics, a little bit of alleged foot stomping and hard taskmastering won’t faze him in the slightest.

SCUM’S RIGHTS A JOKE

AT 31, Johanita Dogbey had her whole life ahead of her when she was killed with a makeshift blade on the streets of South London last May.

Her killer – 34-year-old Mohamed Nur – admitted murder and was found guilty of three other knife attacks a few days earlier.

But he “refused” to appear at his trial and said there was “no point” going to the sentencing hearing where a judge jailed him for at least 32 years.

Sorry? Last year, Rishi Sunak said: “It is unacceptable that some of the country’s most horrendous criminals have refused to face their victims in court . . . that’s why we are giving judges the power to order vile offenders to attend their sentencing hearings, with those who refuse facing being forced in to the dock or spending longer behind bars.”

So why wasn’t Nur dragged by his armpits to face Johanita’s poor family?

A criminal’s “rights” should never take precedence over those of grieving relatives.

HARRY MAKING A FUSS

TURNS out that King Charles did offer Prince Harry a place to stay during his recent visit, but his youngest son opted to stay in a hotel instead for “security reasons”.

Curious. If the King himself is happy with the security arrangements at his royal homes, surely they’re good enough for such a monarchal minnow?

But of course, Harry has been locked in a legal battle with the Home Office ever since it downgraded his state-funded security while in the UK because he’s no longer a working royal.

So perhaps, knowing that his sleeping arrangements would become public know-ledge, his hotel stay for “security reasons” was making a deliberate point.

If so, how exhausting. Surely it’s better for familial relations to just come, go, and stay in a spare room without fuss?

Demi’s dress is making a good point

WHEN Demi Moore wore her spiky-shouldered Schiaparelli dress to the premiere of her film The Substance, organisers had to leave the seat on her left empty so she wouldn’t “stab” anyone.

Given that one of my (many) pet hates is going to the cinema and having some stranger chomping a skipload of nachos in my ear, I am purchasing this frock with immediate effect.

I might even get an extra right-hand spike too.

‘SAINT’ VERSUS MEDIC

LONDON-born teenager Carlo Acutis has been approved for potential sainthood by Pope Francis.

Carlo, who moved to Milan as a young child, died of leukaemia in 2006 when he was just 15.

He was known for spreading the teachings of the Catholic Church online and launched a website to document reported “Eucharistic miracles”.

In 2020 he was beatified – the first step to sainthood – after the “miracle” of a Brazilian child’s recovery from a congenital disease was attributed to him.

And now the Vatican has approved another reported “miracle” to him – the recovery of Costa Rican Valeria Valverde after a serious bike accident.

The 21-year-old underwent an emergency operation to relieve pressure on her brain and was in a critical condition until her mother prayed at Carlo’s tomb in Italy and, voila, Valeria recovered the use of her limbs the very same day.

Far be it from me to question someone’s faith, but couldn’t this “miracle” also be attributed to the superb skills of the surgeon?

CRYING SHAME

BEFORE former Post Office boss Paula Vennells gave evidence at the public inquiry in to the treatment of the falsely accused sub-postmasters, it was unclear whether she was ruthless or useless.

Now we’ve seen the self-pitying tears, the blaming of others and her general “I knew nothing, guv” stance, it’s clear that it’s the latter.

Begging the question; How did someone so mediocre land such a high-powered, well- paid job?