It appears that the brutal Tory approach to social care is not going down so well with its own candidates.

From PoliticsHome:

One candidate said the author of the proposal “should be shot”, The Times reports.

Another candidate standing for re-election said it is “very hard to justify” the plan. “This plan was coming up on the doorstep this morning and there has not even yet been much coverage [on] it. It is very hard to justify, because people with a house of £300,000 could have a liability now of £200,000. I thought the campaign was just right until yesterday,” they said.

Bob Blackman, the Tory candidate in Harrow East, told the Evening Standard: “I broadly support the policy but clearly there needs to be a limit on how much any individual or family should be required to pay.”

A third candidate said the plan was “not great. Theresa should have stuck with Dilnot [which would have imposed a cap on the maximum amount that care users could pay] and an insurance scheme.”

Norman Lamb said:

The Tory high command is now in meltdown. It realises it has misjudged the British people, who don’t like this cold, mean-spirited Conservative approach to our most vulnerable citizens.

First Theresa May was revealed as the lunch-snatcher. Now she is pushing a Dementia tax. This will go down as her poll tax – not only a colossal political miscalculation, but also cruel, showing that she just doesn’t care.

No wonder the Tories are panicking. The Liberal Democrats will continue to campaign to give social care the extra funding it needs, properly funded with a penny on income tax to pay for it, and to give Britain a brighter future.

The Tory plan was also condemned by the Institute of Fiscal Studies, who said:

A life-time cap on care costs, as proposed by the Dilnot Commission, is a solution to the insurance problem. It is effectively a form of social insurance, funded from general taxation. It may also make it easier for a private market to emerge that would offer insurance against care costs up to the cap.

By contrast, the Conservative plan makes no attempt to deal with the fundamental challenge of social care funding. That is the big problem – not how many people might win or lose.

In response to that, Norman said:

This is a scathing conclusion from the IFS. Theresa May’s dementia tax shows her utter disregard for the most vulnerable. It is a betrayal of those who have worked hard all their lives and end up with a condition like dementia through no fault of their own. It doesn’t even deal with the fundamental challenge facing social care funding.

In Coalition we secured a commitment to introduce a cap on care costs.The Conservatives first dithered and have now scrapped it. The Liberal Democrats on the other hand have committed to implementing the cap.

The Liberal Democrats are the only party who have a costed plan to save social care and are the only party who will stand up to Theresa May’s mean-spirited vision for Britain.