IT IS a pity that the radical proposals aimed at solving the problem of paying for long-term care for the elderly, which were unveiled today, come in the pre-election period when both major political parties are vying to present themselves as tax-cutters.

For observe the reaction from both the government and Labour to the scheme outlined by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation which would entail average contributions of £5 a week from people in return for a guarantee of free care in their old age.

It was rejected as a "new and unfair tax" by health minister Simon Burns today.

And though less dismissive, Labour only offered a back-burner response by saying that, if elected, they would refer the Rowntree report to a Royal Commission.

Naturally, with tax cuts now becoming the election campaign theme, the parties are scared both by the notion of a new tax - though what is proposed is a privately-owned, but state-regulated insurance scheme - and by the instant addition of £540million to public spending by making home-based care services and the care element in nursing and residential homes immediately free of charge.

But, if both Labour and Conservatives prefer this short-term outlook for political reasons, it is regrettable that neither seems able to look to the longer term and assess how this plan might solve many of the worries of both voters and government on this question.

For there is considerable anxiety in many families over elderly parents having to sell their homes - which, frequently, are their children's inheritance - in order to pay for accommodation in residential and nursing homes.

This scheme promises that far fewer will have to do that.

It is odd, then, that the government has been so swift to spurn it when reducing that concern would buy votes. It acknowledged this with its own idea earlier this year for financially rewarding people who took out private insurance to cover care costs in their old age.

Certainly the Rowntree proposals, which, notably, have been drawn up with advice from government departments, seem far better as they would cover everyone, not just those responsible and affluent enough to take out their own insurance cover.

The short-term outlook that has been the response to the report will not suffice.

For the problem of defusing the demographic timebomb - and meeting both the costs and the demand for elderly care as the number of people of retirement age is set to outnumber those in work - is one that the government will have to confront.

And since this scheme promises in the longer term to bring in £3billion a year to adequately cope with those demands, allaying much private worry in the process, it is a shame that our politicians can, for short-term electioneering purposes, overlook an important issue that needs to be addressed now.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.