Liberal Democrats pledge to pay for long term personal care

The Liberal Democrats, with an ambitious “tax and spend” programme, can afford to put improvements in the health service at the heart of their manifesto. Critics say that it is easy for them to promise the earth because they have such a small chance of forming a government; they have 47 MPs in all. But as their leader, Charles Kennedy, has pointed out, they can influence and shape policies and reflect the grassroots concern, as they did over the proposed—and now (temporarily) abandoned—attempts to abolish community health councils.

A central plank of the Liberal Democrats' manifesto is to cut waiting times by increasing the number of staff, by providing training places …