CREATE POST-ELECTION "GRANDTZAR" CARE FUNDING ROLE SAYS OLDIES CHAMP.

EMMA SOAMES
EDITOR-AT-LARGE, SAGA MAGAZINE
PRESS RELEASE
 
March 25, 2010.
 

OLDIES CHAMPION CALLS FOR POST-ELECTION CARE FUNDING “GRANDTZAR”.

 
Oldies champion Emma Soames is calling for the immediate post-election appointment of an all-powerful care funding “grandtzar”.
 
Emma, 60, editor-at-large of Saga magazine and a trustee of the Saga Respite for Carers Trust, says that a pre-election White Paper on care funding would be a massive mistake because electioneering and bickering has taken politicians’ eyes off the ball.
 
“The window of opportunity pre-election has passed. Any proposals tabled now would become victims of electioneering, and anything inherited or taken-up again post-election would be changed and argued over, thereby causing even more delay,” said Emma.
 
“Politicians across all parties are digging a bigger and bigger hole for themselves. The three main parties should agree to take the care funding issue out of the pre-election squabbling for the good of themselves and those to whom care issues are crucial.
 
“The crux is deciding where the money is going to come from, and, at the moment, any politicians engaged in the care funding debate can’t decide their way out of a parking space, let alone come to any sort of conclusion on an issue of massive importance to what is, in effect, the most influential element of the electorate: over-55s are three times as likely to vote as under-25s.
 
“Electioneering has killed productive debate and progress. Andy Burnham should park the launch of any proposals, and we’d like to see all parties  planning for a blank-sheet start overseen by a care funding ‘grandtzar’ appointed immediately after the election,” said Emma, 60.
 
“He or she should be expert in care issues, and authoritative enough to cut through the current fudge and get cross-party agreement. If Vince Cable is free then he could sort it out.
 
“And I’d like to remind all parties that not only are over-55s three times as likely to vote as under-25s, but 70% of over-50s surveyed independently have said they will be voting. Older we may be, but those of us who vote are not only older, but shrewder and wiser too.”
 
Ends
 
Further information:
 
Iain Macauley
im@pressrelations.co.uk
07788 978800
www.saga.co.uk
 
Emma Soames, editor-at-large, was editor of Saga Magazine from 2002-2008. Previously she edited the Telegraph Magazine for seven years and before that was editor of ES Magazine, Tatler and the Literary Review. Emma is also an occasional columnist for The Daily Telegraph.