Fairy Tories

In 2010, the Conservatives won an election by promising that the deficit would be eliminated by 2015, and claiming that anyone who didn’t plan to do that was unfit for Government. Yet by 2015 they had barely halved the deficit, and they won another election by glossing over that in convenientfact and claiming that they would eliminate the deficit by 2017. They are now saying that they will keep borrowing and increasing the national debt each year because the deficit will continue until 2025.

In 2015, they sought votes by telling families that they would be protected from the open- ended costs of putting elderly parents into nursing homes for conditions such as dementia. Yet two weeks after the election the Tories said that they wouldn’ t do that after all, and for the last two years families have been left paying more than £ 3,000 a month for dementia care of a loved parent. Now they are introducing the Dementia Tax, which will lead to elderly people who own homes pay-

ing for their own care, with a cap – but nobody knows how much.

Only a few weeks ago, despite winning the 2015 election on a promise of no tax increases, Mrs May was trying to raise the NationalInsurance tax paid by the self-employed, until Labour MPS kicked up a stink about it and she did a U- turn. Can anything Theresa May promises in order to get votes be relied on?

WILLIAM HARRIS Lygon Road, Edinburgh