Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Labour should ignore the Lib Dems on social care

Ed Davey (Getty Images)

Politics is a goldfish bowl, and not in the sense that it’s small and everyone is watching you intensely. It’s more that the inhabitants of the bowl have a three-second memory. That’s the only explanation for the Liberal Democrats saying they will use their 71 MPs to push Labour for cross-party talks on social care. 

Care and the health service was one of the key themes of Ed Davey’s campaign, so it’s not a surprise that his party is briefing that social care will be an early focus. And there is a crisis in social care that we’ve known about for 20 years and that is seriously hampering the ability of the NHS to treat patients in a timely and dignified fashion.

The problem is that we have been here before on cross-party talks so many times.

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