Trust me - I'm a politician

There must be an election in the air. Down in the voting war bunkers the planners have just spotted the grey vote, the crinklies and baldies, have enough votes between them to win - or lose - an election.

Somebody has probably worked out that telling the elderly they have to sell their homes to pay for care when they reach the point where they struggle to care for themselves is not a guaranteed vote winner.

So with knees jerking like a hokey-cokey on speed out come the fag packets - you need something to write these words of wisdom on after all - for the all-singing, all-dancing, brave new world for the OAPs.

Now the Tories have come up with this plan where you shell out £8,000 when you are 65 - just in case - as an insurance policy and if you end up in the old wing-back chair waiting for the bingo to start then the care bill will be paid.

This will be done through insurance companies and we all know how they bend over themselves to help out . . . and the elderly don't have the best of eyesight for reading small print.

Labour meanwhile want a £20,000 premium but you can pay it when they finally nail the box lid down if you want.

Now, don't get me wrong, at my age I do have more than a passing interest, but don't we already have an insurance policy? I seem to remember paying out ever increasing amounts of national insurance so are both parties telling me that was all a con? It was just another tax?

There can't be many insurance policies where it is those who pay the premiums loose out when the time comes to claim. Take up benefits as a career and you are laughing.

Try going to Direct Line or whoever and telling them you have never paid a penny premium in your life but you are making a claim and could they send the cheque by return.

It seems the state forced 45,000 pensioners to sell their homes to pay for care last year - probably a significant number never even knew it happened - and all that was done in our name remember.

Probably the most galling thing is that virtually everyone of those had worked, paying tax and insurance, and saved for most of their lives.

Spend every penny as you earn it, live a life on benefits paying nothing in or be rich enough to fiddle the system with a clever accountant and the state will provide. Work all your life paying into the system and perhaps you should remember it is best to die before you need help.

Maybe it is the cynic in me but New Labour don't seem to have taken much interest in the grey vote for the past 12 years - private pensions raided, state pensions left to stagnate, inheritance tax threshold falling in real terms - but now they face an election wipe out . . . it's trust me I'm a politician time.

The Tories don't have the best of records as the caring party but with an election coming up they can talk compassion with the best of them.

Perhaps the time has come for the OAPs to put their own candidates up - I suspect it is the only way anyone in Westminster will really care.