Boris Johnson’s government might look chaotic – but there is some method in its madness

The government is right to increase taxes for social care, but it has to make sure it genuinely follows through with much-needed reform of the sector, writes Andrew Grice

When Johnson trumpets a big social care budget, we should remember it needs to rise just to meet demographic pressures (PA)

Boris Johnson’s government might look chaotic at times, but there is some method in there – if you look hard enough. After finding a rare spending cut supported by a majority of people (overseas aid), it will soon copy Gordon Brown’s 1 per cent increase in national insurance contributions, a rare popular tax rise.

As chancellor in 2002, Brown raised money for the NHS, while Johnson will do it for social care. As then, opinion polls suggest people are prepared to pay more national insurance; they like its original, if now eroded, contributory principle. “Insurance” has a warm, reassuring feel; we are used to paying for it.

But Downing Street and the Treasury have not yet prepared the ground in the way Brown did for more than a year. His path was not always smooth. Labour got in a pickle at the 2001 election when he refused to rule out a rise in national insurance (unlike the 2019 Tory manifesto, which pledged not to raise the rates of income tax, national insurance and VAT). Luckily for Brown, Labour’s chaos was literally knocked off the front pages when John Prescott thumped a man who threw an egg at him in North Wales.