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Now, I’m quite clearly not as intelligent, wily and – indeed – mendacious as Gordon Brown, and this announcement has got me foxed:

The Guardian: Pensioners to get cash for care

Pensioners will be handed direct control of the care they receive if Labour wins a third term, ministers will pledge today.

Older people will be given the cash equivalent of the support to which they are entitled to so they can purchase the best services their money can buy.

Around £6bn could be transferred into “individual budget accounts” in what Labour is calling a revolution in care provision.

Surely, removing £6bn from the system to allow pensioners to purchase their own – probably private – care is six times worse than this:

BBC News: Howard and Blair clash over NHS

Mr Blair said the Tories wanted to take £1bn out of the NHS for a voucher system which would give people who go privately half of the cost of their operation – a charge later denied by the Tories.

It seems to me that both plans are the same in principle. But the New Labour one is worse because it take more money out of the NHS. And instead of providing the care for pensioners, the New Labour proposal put the responsibility for their care in the hands of the pensioners themselves who may be old, frail, uninformed and open to being ripped off by the first shonky care home or provider that rolls along.

I’d argue the money is best left in the system in both cases – it’s money that can be used to improve the levels of care, infrastructure, salaries or whatever within the NHS.

This is a very dry, dull subject and well done for getting this far, but it does go to the heart of the political debate in the UK at the minute. New Labour dress a conservative policy – the money is going to go to private operators, surely? – up as virtue while beating up on the Opposition for proposing something extremely similar.

Can you get a cigarette paper between the two parties on the main issues?