Frustration grows with Boris, but the social care cap passes

MPs have approved the government’s social care cap in the Commons. But the vote doing so was narrow, and there seem to have been a lot of Conservative MPs either abstaining (which would be a rebellion against a three-line whip) or absent. Some will have been unwell, and ‘slipped’, as it is known, for other reasons. But some may have agreed with the whips that their car was due to break down or a tooth due to need emergency dental work, thus preventing them from voting against this controversial amendment.

One of the things that has annoyed even those sympathetic to the reform is the way it has been snuck into the Health and Care Bill as an amendment. Members of the bill committee complained that they’d spent weeks scrutinising it line-by-line and had found scant reference to social care — only for ministers to bung it in at the last minute.