In one day, the government has broken two key promises to its new voters | Polly Toynbee

People trusted Boris Johnson on social care and HS2. Will they punish him for these twin breaches of faith?

Another day, another assault by this government on the very voters who gave it such a stonking majority. The change in social care subsidies in England, sneaked out under the shield of their own sleaze scandal, is a finely targeted strike on older, less affluent homeowners living in northern English seats. These are the very people Boris Johnson now likes to claim as his own. His manifesto promise, repeated time and again, was that people would not lose their homes through the unlucky “bolt from the blue” of needing care in old age. Well, now they will.

With a new manipulation of the figures that create an £86,000 cap on care costs, the Treasury claws back some of its high cost – but all of it taken from those with less valuable assets. On the same day, another missile lands on his target voters: the northern rail promises hit the buffers – forget Bradford, forget Leeds. How reckless that in such a short time two key “red wall” promises Johnson made in 2019 have become serious electoral liabilities.

Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist

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from The Guardian https://ift.tt/32gInpz