Unglamorous as Care is, it’s something that millions of us do. We have duties to those we love to make their days happy whether they be at home, in a home or just down in spirits or health. Care dominates our lives and over the past few days it has started to dominate the political agenda, though largely ignored in manifestos.

Ed Davey’s moving video, Wes Streeting’s frank admission that he’d wanted more in the Labour manifesto on care, the absence of a care strategy in the Conservatives manifesto, the issue is bubbling up to the surface whether the main parties want to debate it or not.

Streeting’s admission that it would take 10 years from the point that his party did get round to address the financial and resourcing issues of looking after the elderly, suggests that like pensions, care is not something that has a quick fix. Had we adopted Dilmot, or the May proposals or those in the 2019 Tory Manifesto, we would be at some stage down the road but we would not be at the end of the journey.

And failing to deal with care, simply bleeds the NHS of resource, to the point that the NHS, which is on the agenda, cannot properly function. We are waking up to the incompleteness of the promises made to us. This will undoubtedly be turned into another strand of “project fear” (the taxes they are not telling you about). I can only see the long term challenge of an ageing population being met by accelerated growth in national prosperity, otherwise we are going to continue to have the duck and dive policies that we are seeing in this election.

The pension angle (there’s always one)

Issues of liquidity are to the fore. For most  people facing big care bills, there are up to five sources of finance. Savings (or wealth), housing (equity release), family  , benefits  and pensions.

The PLSA retirement living standards do not include the cost of residential or home care, assuming that other sources of finance will take care of the problem. Care is not seen as a pension problem, though the tax-free cash we take (with a reduced ongoing income) has to be spent on something. Many will put it by for later age, though it is likely to provide only partial cover.

The private pension, by the time later life care is needed, is often so denuded by drawdowns and cost of living spikes that it is nowhere near covering the £60,000 pa which is the typical cost of residential care. Dementia care is considerably more expensive.

Neither pensions or taxes are enough

Nor is the tax system is not geared to meeting this kind of cost. The DWP subsidy per bed is simply not enough to keep care homes going. The two set up in my home town on a charitable basis have both closed in the last five years. Bother were funded by the DWP, those who no longer cared for in these homes are cared for in hospital or at home.

And there are millions, like Ed Davey, for whom the cost of care is principally born within the family. It is paid for out of taxed income from work.

This ramshackle approach to funding the nation’s care needs is in contrast to other countries who have clearer policies. Some, especially the Nordic countries, provide more care on the state, others – the southern European model – have stronger family units. Britain seems to fall in between. It is a nation so heterogenous that it defies generality. So some communities still operate a village culture inherited from countries of origination. Care is not in the community – it is the community. For others of us, the family unit is now fractured by geography and opportunity.

Creating a balanced model that caters for such diversity of approach is too much of a challenge for a manifesto. It is a hostage to political fortune that parties that pretend to Government would rather not discuss on the hustings.

But it such a burning platform that it ignites anyway. Care is igniting as an issue in this election and could yet have a significant impact on the outcome of the election. The Labour party would do well to listen to Andy Burnham, Wes Streeting and indeed Ed Davey.