Shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, who survived Ed Miliband's reshuffle last week to many commentators' surprise, has thrown down the gauntlet to ministers and his own colleagues on social care funding.

Fired up perhaps by his new lease of life, he has let it be known that he is looking at the idea of making care free at the point of use and funding the costs through a national care tax.

If so, this would be a daring, if not foolhardy, move for a Labour government to make, by increasing direct taxation for the first time in decades for all income groups.

On the plus side, it would solve the current agonising dilemma about how to fund adult care without taking away people's homes by spreading the burden across all the population.

His comments came at the end of an otherwise thoughtful speech on health and care funding at last week's SOLACE conference in York.