Fun Online Polls: Cheryl Cole & Long-term care

Thanks to everybody who took part in last week's Fun Online Poll, results as follows:

Should Cheryl Cole go back to her serial cheat love rat overpaid prima donna ex-husband?

Ne, man! - 42%
Ah divvent knaa - 34%
Why aye! - 14%
Sheh should follow hor hort - 10%.

According to today's Soaraway Sun, it looks as if she is not going to follow our sage advice. In protest, I will not buy her records in future... which I wasn't going to do anyway.
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There was a rare flash of two-sided economics in today's Telegraph:

Individuals will have to pay the first £35,000 of the costs of a care home place, or help in their own homes with tasks such as washing and dressing, under the plan. After reaching this cap, the state [sic] will step in and cover any care costs above this level.

But to meet the additional drain on the Treasury of an estimated £2 billion a year, ministers may choose to [i.e. will] raise taxes, the report, from the Care Commission said. And Mr Dilnot said part of the burden must fall on pensioners...

Treasury figures, disclosed to the Daily Telegraph, show that the initial cost would be £2.5 billion a year, but that this will double within a decade to around £5 billion - equivalent to £200 per household.

Normally you'd expect a deeply Home-Owner-Ist rag like the Telegraph to focus on the "hooray!" side of the equation, but unusually for them, they look at the costs as well as the benefits: the government will guarantee people's inheritances but it will ask an overlapping group of people to pay extra in tax. Seems a bit arse about face to me, why not expect the likely heirs to sort out insurance, and those who aren't relying on windfall gains of an unknown amount at an unknown point in the future (or who stand to inherit little anyway) can just opt out - or pay for insurance for their own long term care if they want their 'wealth to cascade down the generations'?

So that's the topic of this week's Fun Online Poll: "Who ought to pay for the long-term care of 'asset-rich' pensioners?"

Vote here or use the widget in the side bar.