The Tories are coming under attack for making their care policy fairer and more honest

SIR – I cannot believe how badly the Tory party has explained its socialcare policy.

The reality of its proposal is that children of old people going into care homes could be £77,000 better off.

There is already a disparity between the cost of cancer care and Alzheimer’s disease. This is nothing new.

How is paying your own care bills with your own money a tax? You are not subsidising anyone else.

The current system of home care is a transfer of wealth from struggling council-tax payers to moderately wealthy homeowners. How is that fair or sustainable? The hypocrisy of Labour and the Lib Dems attacking this is laughable but predictable.

No doubt the Tories will be punished for being honest about social care. That’s why we end up with dishonest politicians. Thomas Rouser

Richmond, Surrey

SIR – We now have a Work and Pensions Secretary, Damian Green, who believes that people should not expect to be allowed to pass on more than £100,000 to their children.

Is Mr Green now suggesting that we might as well all spend, spend, spend because there is no point in saving any more? Whatever happened to Conservatism? John Froggatt

Osgathorpe, Leicestershire

SIR – Many people will be at least partly persuaded by Theresa May’s fairness argument for payment for care at home. But while payment for the direct wages of the carer’s home visit is one thing, how much of the council’s social-care overheads will also be heaped upon the charge?

Unless the rates of payment are defined and capped, this could become a means for councils to fund their own inefficiencies. Jeff Chambers

Ulverston, Cumbria

SIR – It’s all very well for the Telegraph to suggest that there should be an insurance market for social care (Leading article, May 21), but there isn’t one. According to Mrs May, if I have health problems in old age and need a lot of social care, I should face catastrophic bills that I can do nothing about.

That’s what’s wrong, not the idea that I pay. It’s how much I pay. If, instead of ditching the cap on how much I pay, the Tories raised it, I might be able to get insurance.

And stop the grossly unfair practice whereby people who pay for their own care pay higher fees. My mother didn’t just spend all her life-savings on her care fees, she actually subsidised other residents who were state-funded.

If this proposal goes ahead, people will change their behaviour and pass assets to children earlier. In the long term it could backfire badly. In the short term Mrs May is simply ditching a lot of votes. Steve Bagnall

Oxford

SIR – To address home-care liability the Government should offer a non-profit-making state-backed insurance policy.

For anyone who did not choose to pay all the premium initially, the Government could offer a loan against the property equity at a modest interest rate, which would eventually be settled by the person’s estate. This would save old people the uncertainty of losing the bulk of their estate. David Boyd

Hertford

SIR – Mrs May and her advisers have been very clever. They know that if the Conservatives win the election by a huge majority she will be criticised for ruling as a dictator without a viable opposition to hold her to account.

They have therefore come up with policies to put off parts of the electorate, such as by antagonising pensioners. Her majority will therefore be reduced.

Clever. Very clever. Robin Nonhebel

Swanage, Dorset