Mike Priestley: Who's Counting?

That's not a happy thought, I know. But it might be made a bit less of an unhappy one if we knew that any care of that sort wouldn't clean us out financially - that we wouldn't have to sell our houses and use up all but £10,000 of the proceeds before the State would pay the charges for our care.

The changes proposed by the Royal Commission on Long Term Care for the Elderly would be an important step in the right direction, if the Government was to accept them. There's no guarantee of that, of course. They will cost it money.

But as I've argued time and again on this page, this is a country which has a lot of money. We might be creeping into a recession, but there's still plenty of cash about. The trouble is, it isn't being spread around properly. We've got our priorities in a mess.

As a nation we spend rather too much on luxuries and treats and not enough on the things that really matter: health, education, and the care of old people who have paid their dues to the state during their working lifetimes and have every right to expect to be looked after by it if or when it becomes necessary.

If we organised ourselves properly, there's no reason at all why the steady increase in the numbers of older people in society should be treated as a crisis. It's a challenge, certainly, but not one that can't be met.

So good for the Royal Commission for coming up with a sort of halfway house recommendation: that elderly people be given free care in nursing and residential homes while contributing (subject to means-testing) to the costs of their accommodation and food.

It sounds like a complicated formula to work out, but in principle its a shift in the right direction. The big stumbling block is likely to be: how is it to be funded?

The commission was apparently split on this, with the majority wanting the money to come from general taxation. The doubters, though, preferred a system based on compulsory insurance during individuals' working lives to cover the cost of any residential care should they eventually need it.

I think I'm with the minority on this. I appreciate that we already pay into a similar scheme via our National Insurance. But as far as I can see, this is just income tax by another name. It all goes into the same pot.

This would have to be a fund purely and simply to meet the cost of care, with firm guarantees that none of it would be pinched to build schools or fight wars or pay for Ministers' trips on Concord.

Whichever system the Government goes for, though, it must make sure that it does away with the present injustice. Those who have been prudent throughout their lives should not have to spend most of their savings (including the value of their home) to keep them in basic, decent care if they have the misfortune to become infirm.

l Bureaucrats really do need to be made to realise that elderly people sometimes worry a great deal. In fact, many much younger people would have been worried if, like 84-year-old Mr Harry Cogram, they found themselves threatened with eviction by their local council over rent arrears of 3p.

But younger people would probably have managed to sort it out fairly quickly. Mr Cogram didn't. The veteran of the Normandy invasion pored over his statements with a magnifying glass, trying to locate the error. In his distress he told a social worker "You might as well put me up against the wall and shoot me." And in the end he hanged himself.

Once, Harry Cogram had looked death in the face as he waded ashore through shell fire on to a foreign beach. He was defeated in the end by an unthinking, unbending, computer-driven town-hall bureacracy that should be ashamed of itself.

I Don't Believe It!

A few weeks ago someone was complaining to me on this page about all the snogging that goes on in films and TV programmes. It made them feel a bit sick to see people with their mouths clamped together.

Now regular reader Christine M Lawlor says she's sick of watching what she calls the "graphic vomit".

"A great number of people are aware that there is far too much sex and violence on television these days," she writes. "But isn't there anyone out there, besides myself, who finds this vomiting just a little too much to stomach (no pun intended)? I don't want to see matter being expelled from somebody's mouth (even if it is pretend), especially when I'm eating! It's just horrible.

"A couple of weeks ago my husband was feeling nauseous. While we were watching television, a 'graphic vomit' occurred. He had to make a quick dash to the toilet to be sick.

"In past times, anyone who was going to be sick put their hand over their mouth and just disappeared out of camera shot. Why do we have to watch the whole thing?

"I think a warning should be given before these programmes are shown to the public, just like warnings are given regarding sex and violence scenes. In that way people like me, who have a phobia about being sick, will be warned well in advance not to watch the programme and thus avoid the unpleasant scene."

I agree wholeheartedly, Christine. This is something that Mike Priestley and I were discussing only the other day. He tells me that he hides behind a cushion when it looks as if someone on the telly is about to throw up - although usually it happens so quickly you don't have time to take avoiding action.

If there's one of those scenes on at home when Mrs Mildew and I are viewing, she insists on turning the television off and won't let me turn it back on again all evening. I've missed a lot of good dramas on account of these graphic vomits.

If you have a gripe about anything, drop a line to me, Hector Mildew, c/o Newsroom, T&A, Hall Ings, Bradford BD1 1JR, email me or leave any messages for me with Mike Priestley on (44) 0 1274 729511. And by the way, I keep getting letters addressed to Victor Meldrew. That's not me. It's some other misery-guts who's on the telly.

Yours Expectantly,

Hector Mildew

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